Crime rates declining significantly
From the Bank's Quarterly Report, it appears that bank robberies via transfers dropped by a quarter compared to last year's end, but the refunded amount nearly doubled. The two-day mandatory transfer hold, as per the law, probably slowed down the theft influx, while the decreased refund rate could be due to bank policies, regulation changes, or perhaps increased attempts at fraud.
In the opening quarter of 2025, crooks netted around 6.7 billion rubles through bank transfers—a 25% decrease compared to the last quarter of the previous year. This is according to the "Money Transfer Incident Report Review" published by the Bank of Russia on May 16. Simultaneously, the refunded amount plummeted by almost half, from 0.9 billion rubles to 0.5 billion rubles, with the percentage share dropping to 7.8% compared to 11.9% in the third quarter and 10.7% in the last quarter of the previous year.
On a yearly basis, the stolen funds in the first quarter of 2025 surpassed the values of the previous year (by 60%) and exceeded the indicators of any quarter in the last three years, excluding the third and fourth quarters of 2024. Alexei Voylukov, an MBA professor of digital finance at the Presidential Academy of the Russian Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, comments that "the rise in thefts in the third and fourth quarters of 2024 was abnormal, so we can say the current figures are reverting to their natural growth rates."
Experts attribute this robbing spree to regulatory changes and technological advancements. Sergei Belov, head of Positive Technologies' banking system security research group, explains that legislation granted banks the power to hold suspicious transfers for up to two days, obliging them to compare operations against an updated database of fraudsters' details. "This has enabled many fraudulent transactions to be blocked at the authorization stage," he says.
Alexander Bleznekov, head of the cybersecurity division at "Telecom Exchange," notes that large banks employ complex automated systems, artificial intelligence, big data analysis, and vigilant financial monitoring teams working around the clock. However, these expensive monitoring and detection systems require constant management that many smaller banks might not afford, leaving room for criminals to exploit. Pavel Kovalev, director of the anti-fraud center at "InfoZashchita," adds that some big banks have become stricter in their risk assessment systems and behavioral scenarios, particularly for unusual activity, new devices, or location changes.
Regarding the declined refunded amounts, experts mention several factors that could be responsible for this trend. Sergei Belov attributes the reduction partly to public pressure that led to a spike in refunds in the previous year. However, banks then adjusted their practices, increasingly classifying transfers as " client-initiated under deception" rather than "without consent," which allowed them to avoid compensating losses in such cases, he clarifies.
Fedor Muzalevsky, director of the technical department at RTM Group, points out that refunded fraudulent operations are often due to banking errors. "These errors are now minimized, making prevention easier than violating regulations," he suggests. Muzalevsky expresses concerns that artificially increasing the refund rate for stolen funds could foster "consumer terrorism" among bank clients, causing them to become complacent, leading to a sharp increase in thefts.
Maxim Buylov, Yulia Poslavskaya
In light of the Bank of Russia's "Money Transfer Incident Report Review," it's worth noting that the industry witnessed a reduction of 25% in bank transfer-related thefts in the opening quarter of 2025 compared to the last quarter of the previous year. However, the refunded amount dropped by nearly half, indicating a possible shift in the banking-and-insurance sector's policies or regulations, as suggested by experts.
