April 05, 2013, 22:43 / Technologies

The Central Bank posted on the Internet a list of all banks with their website addresses

After the detection of fake banks and websites became more frequent, the Central Bank called on the population and organizations to check the licenses of institutions offering banking services on the Internet. Information about the addresses of the websites of credit institutions licensed by the Bank of Russia to carry out banking operations is posted on the official website of the regulator in the section “Directory of Credit Institutions” .

The addresses of 1,123 websites belonging to credit institutions are published on the Central Bank website. The list was compiled on the basis of information contained in special reporting forms provided by credit institutions to the Bank of Russia. Some banks indicate two or three sites (including foreign subsidiaries).

In accordance with current legislation, the Bank of Russia does not regulate the use of websites by credit institutions, does not control their content, and is not responsible for their functioning, as well as for the accuracy of the information published on them, the Central Bank notes.

In March, the Central Bank announced that cases of identifying sites on the Internet whose names contain the words “bank” have become more frequent. These sites offer banking services on behalf of organizations for which the Bank of Russia has not made a decision on state registration and issuance of a license to carry out banking operations.

At the beginning of February 2013, the Central Bank first warned about the identification of a fake bank. It called itself Ton-Bank, “issued” loans via the Internet, “had” an office in Moscow, but in reality did not exist. Experts believe that the goal of the hoaxers was to collect personal data of loan applicants or funds for the “issue” of credit cards.

The financial damage to his potential clients has not yet been assessed, but after this the Central Bank identified several more fake banks, a source in the Central Bank said. Now the Central Bank is discussing with the Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications how to stop or identify at an early stage cases of registration of sites containing the word “bank” or bank. One of the options is mandatory verification of the availability of a banking license when registering a domain name containing these words, says Vedomosti’s interlocutor.

In addition, cases have become more frequent when sites appear that allegedly belong to actually operating banks (sometimes large ones), but in fact they were not registered by the bank.

“The implementation of banking activities by organizations of this kind, including using the Internet, can be qualified as illegal banking activities, liability for which is provided for in Article 172 of the Criminal Code,” the regulator warned.

The Central Bank has long been fighting against companies calling themselves banks without a license. For example, back in 2006, the Central Bank turned to the Prosecutor General's Office to check the activities of the Finam company and identify facts of illegal banking activities. The Central Bank did not like the fact that Finam, without having a banking license, called one of its divisions an “investment bank.” Finam's struggle for the name was short-lived: less than a month later, the word “bank” was removed from the name of the investment division.