Kazakhstan mulls restricting cash withdrawal

Kazakhstan Agency for Countering Economic and Corruption Crime (financial police) is suggesting to legally restrict withdrawal of cash by individuals and legal entities, Tengrinews.kz reports. “To radically change the current situation we suggest to consider legal restriction of amounts of cash allowed for withdrawal from bank accounts. For example, we suggest to limit the total amount of withdrawn cash per month to 3 thousand MCI (monthly calculation index), which is around 5 million tenge ($33 thousand) for individuals and 10 thousand MCI for legal entities,” deputy chairman of the Agency Aivar Bodanov said during a round-table meeting in the Senate on countering pseudo-entrepreneurship. According to him, the law On amendments to several legislative acts on countering money laundering and financing terrorism provides for lowering the allowed amounts of cash payments between legal entities from 4 to 1 thousand MCI (from $46 thousand to $11 thousand). Meanwhile, according to Bodanov, this measure is “insufficiently effective as the law does set any restrictions on cash withdrawal”. “That means that the fly-by-night companies, just like before, will be able to pull unlimited amounts of cash without any restrictions,” he said. According to Bodanov, restriction of untraceable cash flow has to become a key measure in countering the shadow economy. “Study of global practices in this area has shown that European countries are taking active measures to toughen restrictions of cash flows amid the economic crisis conditions,” he noted. By Altynai Zhumzhumina