At the meeting of the working sub-groups held on Monday, 16 September 2019 at the headquarters of OSCE Mission from Tiraspol, the Vice-Governor of the National Bank of Moldova (NBM), Mr Ion Sturzu, mentioned that there is maximum willingness on behalf of the licensed banks from Chisinau to collaborate with economic agents, including with those from the Transnistrian region. The official of the NBM emphasized that banks treat their clients fairly, and the only imposed condition is compliance with the law.   

„The Republic of Moldova is in line with the international requirements on the prevention and combating money laundering and terrorism financing. Moreover, in 2018, the Law on the Prevention and Combating Money Laundering and Terrorism Financing entered into force. According to this law, the clients of the bank must be transparent in carrying out transactions. Economic operators, including those from the Transnistrian region, accepted these requirements when they submitted requests to open accounts”, explained Mr Sturzu.   

Considering that under the law, the NBM “issues licenses, supervises and regulates the activity of financial institutions”, no permission on behalf of other institutions, including from the Transnistrian region, is necessary for opening accounts with the licensed banks from the Republic of Moldova. 

The Vice-Governor of the NBM also underlined during the meeting from Tiraspol, that the information regarding those 420 legal entities from Transnistria, that hold bank accounts in the Republic of Moldova cannot be disclosed because under the law, this information was obtained from commercial banks and can be used only for supervisory purposes.

Based on the information provided by licensed banks at the beginning of this year, the accounts of 67 economic operators were blocked, out of which two were from the Transnistrian region. The reasons of the blocking were the non-transparent activity, unjustified origin of money and provision of erroneous information.