Telegram belongs to the category of foreign messengers, which means that the new version of the law “On Information” does not allow the integration of banking functions into it: the transfer of personal data, as well as information about bank accounts and payments, Kommersant writes with reference to the press service of Roskomnadzor. Russian banks that have fallen under Western sanctions are considering the platform as an alternative to mobile applications that are now unavailable.
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Last year, the law “On Information” was amended to provide for the creation of a register of foreign messengers – its maintenance was entrusted to Roskomnadzor. From March 1, 2023, services from this registry will be prohibited from connecting money transfer functions, and organizations performing a “government task” will lose the right to use these platforms to send personal data and bank information related to accounts and payments. “Telegram is one of these programs,” the press service of Roskomnadzor responded to a request from Kommersant.
The Telegram messenger was launched in 2013 by the founder of VKontakte, Pavel Durov. The platform is registered in the Virgin Islands and the UAE. The service is operated by closed source servers located in the United States, the Netherlands and Singapore. At the end of 2022, the Telegram audience reached 700 million. From 2018 to 2020. the messenger was listed as blocked in Russia.
Russian banks subject to Western sanctions, including VTB and PSB, consider Telegram as one of the channels for remote customer service after blocking their applications in the App Store and Google Play. On December 19, VTB reported on the implementation of some functions in its chat bot on the platform: users got the opportunity to check their balance and send payments through the SBP, and in the future they were promised to add intra-bank transfers and transfers between client accounts. Back in 2021, before the imposition of sanctions, PSB implemented the ability for business clients to issue and pay invoices in Telegram and WhatsApp. In December, Alfa-Bank also planned to implement online banking through Telegram and VK – users of the latter are already receiving notifications about the readiness of cards.
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The decision of Roskomnadzor can put an end to all these initiatives, since they will be outside the legal field. However, earlier representatives of banks expressed a different point of view. VTB Senior Vice President Nikita Chugunov emphasized that information constituting bank secrecy is not transmitted directly through Telegram: users get “access to the online bank, and all operations are carried out on the side of the bank, and not in the messenger.” In other credit institutions, they still prefer not to rush: Zenit Bank believes that instant messengers are not considered by customers as an operating environment; Uralsib does not plan to integrate with Telegram yet; and in Novikombank, although they consider servicing via messengers a promising direction, they expect legal certainty.
Politicians and lawyers are sure that the decision of Roskomnadzor will have direct consequences. State Duma deputy Anton Gorelkin, the author of amendments to the register of foreign messengers, noted on January 19 that if Telegram falls into this category, “the service developed by VTB will not be able to work legally.” The absence of “loopholes” was also stated by Vladimir Ozherelyev from the law firm DRC. Although he made a reservation that some exceptions are possible – service through the messenger will be legal if, for example, Telegram becomes a shell, and banks use their own servers.
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