Rebeca González (not her real name) needed to make a payment quickly last week on her bank’s app, but each time she tried, she received the message: “Your account is not in active status.” I couldn’t send or receive money.
He felt the anxiety of losing control over his savings and called the bank. An employee informed you that your account was blocked and I had to go in person, because I couldn’t tell him over the phone.
She went to a branch and waited an hour and a half to be informed that the bank had decided immobilize your product because a woman claimed to have made an accidental transfer to her.
The above is one of several circumstances in which banks choose to close the accounts of its clients, although no law or regulation authorizes them.
This type of case shows that the practice continues despite several warnings from the Superintendency of Banks (SB), the Law for the Prevention of Money Laundering and the Financing of Terrorism (155-17) and Ruling 0952-25 of the Constitutional Court (TC), which classified the bank blockade as a violation of property rights.
When consulted on this issue, the SB has been emphatic that “the financial intermediation entities (EIF) can’t freeze nor immobilize the accounts or products of its clients on its own initiative.
“They can only freeze products and bank accounts when they receive orders to freeze the Public Ministry or a competent court,” adds the entity.
Another method of restricting access to funds deposited in accounts is lienswhich a creditor can exercise to collect a debt. To do so, documents with legal force are required, whether authentic titles or under a private signature, or the authorization of a judge.
The seizure is a conservative precautionary measure with which the creditor ensures that he will be paid, and is also a resource used in abuseas pointed out by the Multiple Banks Association of the Dominican Republic (ABA).
“The withholding embargo has become a mechanism that is sometimes used as a pressure measurement, without clear criteria or control adequate judicial This situation generates distortions, legal insecurity and negative economic effects, particularly for financial users who lack the resources to access legal presentation and face prolonged processes,” the ABA has warned.
The Superintendency developed together with the ABA a legislative initiative to introduce embargo regulations in the Code of Civil Procedure, but the National Congress has not yet approved it.
When to block?
The Superintendency states that “in no case The entity has the right to freeze or withhold amounts from clients if there are no immobilization orders or seizures”, although it also speaks of “other cases that could arise.”
Under this title it includes the measures of “prevention against unusual behavior or suspected fraud.”
The institution confirms that, “when entities have signs of possible fraudcould block products until they confirm certain transactions with their clients.
However, the Money Laundering Law and its implementing regulations only require banks to send a report of suspicious operation (ROS) to the Financial Analysis Unit (UAF) within five days of the transaction being carried out or attempted (articles 52 to 54).
The UAF analyzes the information to escalate cases of possible money laundering to the Public Ministry. If an investigation is opened, this institution must seek a court order to block accounts or do it on your own for a maximum of 72 hours.
Banks must also send them transaction reports that as a whole are equal to or greater than 15 thousand dollars or its equivalent in national currency.
The only preventive freezes explicitly authorized by the regulation fall on the people indicated in the lists of terrorists or terrorist financiers of the United Nations Security Council. These include the Taliban, members of Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State, and participants in North Korea’s nuclear programs.
Money laundering
In the third version of the Instructions on Due Diligence, the SB opens a gap for the blockade of investigated client accounts when it establishes that financial intermediation entities must implement policies for the identification of clients linked to money laundering.
The document urges that these manuals describe “the circumstances under which investigated clients could use the product or serviceuntil the information verification procedure is concluded, considering the effective management of money laundering risks.”
It also provides that entities must have automated systems for cash transaction monitoring of its clients that include measures such as “blocking the execution of transactions prohibited by current regulations.”
Sanctions
The Sanctions Regulation approved by the Monetary Board establishes fines between 3 and 4 million pesos for entities that deny without just legal or contractual cause deposit refund.
At the other extreme, the Money Laundering Law considers a very serious infraction “failure to comply with the obligation to exercise and maintain a confiscation measure or precautionary measures of the funds, financial assets or economic resources of natural or legal persons, at the request of a court or competent authority.”
Here the sanctions range from 5 to 10 million of pesos.
