Updates the standards for institutions that have Russian or Belarusian deposits of more than €100,000
It is necessary to find a solution for professional sectors that operate in Cyprus, provide services and do not have a strict competent Authority to comply.
By Panagiotis Rougalas
After the uproar that has been created with the lists of American, British and European Authorities for sanctions (sanctions), the standards used by the European Banking Authority (EBA) are also being tightened. In particular, the European Banking Authority has revised the templates for reporting deposits subject to Russian and Belarus financial sanctions to banks, stressing that the revised templates reflect the latest changes in sanctions regulations and the experience gained during the first reporting year immediately following the launch of Russo-Ukrainian. Thus, as the Authority informed, at the request of the EU Commission, it has updated the templates that will be used for the second annual submission of information on the deposits subject to the regulations on the financial sanctions of Russia and Belarus.
Credit institutions shall provide information specified for Russian or Belarusian nationals no later than May 27 of each calendar year.
At the same time, the EBA will make the templates available to the relevant national competent authorities and the EU Commission. for optional use, with the aim of promoting a converged approach and reducing any relevant reporting costs, especially for cross-border banks.
Within the updated EBA template it is stated that credit institutions should provide the national competent authority of the Member State in which they are established or to the Commission, information on deposits, as defined in the relevant articles for Russian or Belarusian nationals, or natural persons residing in Russia or Belarus, or by legal persons, entities or bodies established in Russia or Belarus.
There are directives on member states whose official currency is other than the euro, while also requiring banks to provide account-by-account information for all accounts holding deposits in individual and joint accounts holding deposits for account holders whose the total book value in the credit institution exceeds 100,000 euros or 200,000 euros.
With reference dates According to the revised – tightened EBA guidelines, specific timetables concerning reports and remittances are included. For example, he says, credit institutions will now provide information designated for Russian or Belarusian nationals no later than May 27 of each calendar year. When, however, the institutions will not be able to provide the information in question until this date, then they should inform the competent authorities and indicate a new date on which they will submit it.
Based on the EBA's new directives for banks, regarding the management of sanctions, schedules are introduced regarding deposit balances, while there are new legal references and instructions regarding the account number, the holder's residence, nationality and more.
By the hair
The financial and banking exclusion of names subject to sanctions as well as persons who help them, or at least are alleged to help them or have helped them, has economic ramifications in all states. The name of Cyprus is not the first time that it is said to have close relations with the East, with the sanctions now including Cypriot names. The package of the American and British authorities on Friday narrowly passed, this time, despite the bets in the financial wells that it will have first-class names of Cypriot service providers.
Suspicions were many and the debate about the existence of first-class names long, so in general there should be no complacency, since “where there is smoke, there is fire”. The fact that there were no new Cypriot names, as in the list of April 12, which the Ministry of Finance is still “struggling” with the Department of the Comptroller of Companies to limit the damage that has been created in the short term to the Cypriot economy, does not mean that there won't be any in the next one.
It is necessary to find a solution for professional sectors that operate in Cyprus, provide services and do not have a strict competent Authority to comply, such as banks for example.
Compliance lessons
The banks in Cyprus once found themselves – in the not so distant 2018 – with only one (1) correspondent bank for a dollar, i.e. one step away from Cyprus being characterized as a high risk country for someone to invest prospective investor. The banks have clearly made huge strides in compliance since then, which is why they now have four (4) correspondent banks per dollar. The Cypriot banks do not seem to have known from the beginning to take steps in the right direction in relation to the sanctions, however with lessons from higher authorities, they succeeded. It is enough to see the will of lawyers mainly and accountants – auditors, so that foreign higher competent authorities can proceed with compliance courses so that the name of Cyprus will finally cease to appear in the media for the wrong reasons once every few months.
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