“How easy to lose millions from a bank account under a false power of attorney” — Tatiana Tereshchenko for Fontanka.Ru
Banks are not obliged to check the powers of attorney of depositors and are not responsible for the savings of clients issued to fraudsters. This decision of the St. Petersburg city court took on the claim to PJSC "Baltic Bank". Representatives of other credit institutions promise to protect their depositors from such incidents.
The current legislation obliges banks only to formally identify customers. In controversial situations, "extreme" are investors, who are essentially invited to look for the criminals themselves and try to get stolen from them.
According to Tatyana Tereshchenko, head of the analytical department of "Prime Advice", the Bank is responsible for proper identification of client taking into account the requirements of the relevant legislation, instructions of the Bank of Russia and its internal rules:
But such identification is standardized and does not allow to detect a fake. Of course, the bank's employee must verify the signatures, verify the authenticity of the submitted documents and that the power of attorney is really issued by a notary. But by and large, there are no necessary specialists and equipment to identify high-quality fakes. Additional requests should be made by the instruction officer only in case of suspicion, which is quite estimated in each situation. Thus, if the bank provides evidence of its identification in accordance with the established rules, due to the formal absence of a violation on its part, the risk of issuing funds to an unidentified and unauthorized person is actually borne by the client.