Experts told GetBlock Magazine what to do if a bank asks for information on the receipt of funds when withdrawing cryptocurrency.

What does the law say?

In recent years, many countries, including Russia, have been developing their own legislative methods to regulate cryptocurrency circulation. For example, in April, Russia's Federal Tax Service advocated international settlements in digital assets, while the Association of Banks of Russia proposed criminalizing the storage of cryptocurrencies in non-custodial wallets.

Current legislation allows banks to request information from their clients about the sources of funds coming into their accounts, explained Andrey Tugarin, managing partner of GMT Legal. According to him, Federal Law No. 115-FZ “On Countering Money Laundering and the Financing of Terrorism” gives bank organizations this right, as well as the Methodological recommendations of the Central Bank of Russia, the CBR Directive No. 5599-U.

According to these documents, the bank has a right to block funds on the client's account until clarification of additional circumstances of the transaction, Tugarin added. He explained that in such situations the bank specialist requests information about the sources of origin of funds and the economic sense of the operation.

How to unblock your funds

The first thing you will need to do to remove the blockage is to answer the questions of the bank representative, Dmitry Noskov, the expert on the cryptocurrency exchange StormGain, advised. According to him, in such situations, it is better not to aggravate the situation and cooperate with the bank, explaining that the funds were received legally.

According to Tugarin, the following documents may be submitted to the bank to prove the legality of received funds: a 2-NDFL or 3-NDFL income certificate, as well as checks and statements listed in the purpose of incoming payments and justifying the receipt of funds from third parties (loan agreements, employment, and other contracts, etc).

It is also possible to use screenshots of transactions from the account on the exchange, Tugarin says. But it should be taken into account that it must be verified (with full confirmation of the identity of the owner) and belong to the person who made the withdrawal of cryptocurrency to the bank account, Tugarin added.

How to avoid blocking

To reduce the risk of blocking funds, you should make sure that transactions do not fall under the list of suspicious transactions specified directly in the acts of the Central Bank, the lawyer Tatiana Karkhaleva said. She also recommended studying Clause 14 of Article 7 115 of the Federal Law “On Countering Money Laundering and the Financing of Terrorism,” which is often referred to by the bank employees while blocking suspicious transactions. The following accounts may be considered suspicious:

• A large number of counterparties. More than ten per day or 50 per month;
• An abnormal number of crediting and debiting transactions with individuals. More than 30 transactions a day;
• High volumes of cash debiting and crediting operations between the individuals. Over 100 thousand rubles per day and more than 1 million rubles per month;
• Short time interval (one minute or less) between crediting and debiting;
• Within 12 hours or more than one day crediting and debiting operations are performed;
• During the week, the average balance on the card or wallet account at the end of the trading day does not exceed 10% of the average daily volume of transactions on the account during this period;
• No transactions for payment for goods or services are performed on the card or wallet;
• The use of the same device by different individuals to remotely access the money transfer services of the credit institution.

Additionally, it is necessary to take care that all accounts on exchanges have full identity verification, Karkhaleva explained. Providing screenshots of the transaction, in this case, could be a reason to remove the blocking of the transaction, as it will be possible to prove that the person who made the transaction on the crypto exchange is the owner of the bank account.