BC wants to hold banks responsible for orange accounts used in Pix scam

The president of the Central Bank, Roberto Campos Neto, said this Tuesday (31) that, in order to stop fraud involving Pix, the monetary authority intends to hold responsible banks that have orange accounts – opened by criminals in the name of other people.

“We are tightening as much as possible so that banks do not have the capacity to host an orange account or an intermediary account”, said Campos Neto at a public hearing at the Consumer Protection Commission of the Chamber of Deputies.

“We will even start to make a process in which the banks will be held responsible if a Pix fraud is made and they have an orange account”, he added.

Fraudsters use victim data to open digital bank accounts, which are used to receive money via Pix from other people who are also targeted by criminals. In addition, they borrow from the new account and then transfer the resource. Given the difficulty of tracking payments, the tactic is used to evade police investigations.

“We generated as much flexibility as possible. Even so, fraud continues to occur. It is important to understand that, when fraud is committed on Pix, it needs to have a receiving source”, he added.

To parliamentarians, Campos Neto defended that the BC has done everything possible to protect consumers from scams, kidnappings and other crimes involving the instant payments system, creating new features for the tool.

“You can cancel your limit, make it so that only you can do [um Pix] with those who are already pre-registered, you can calibrate [o limite] by time. We are doing everything, because those who know the most about their way of consuming are the consumers themselves”, he said.

In 2021, BC implemented a series of changes to Pix’s rules to increase the security of the system after a significant increase in fraud, kidnapping and other crimes.

as showed the Sheet, lightning kidnappings — a modality in which a person spends a few hours in the hands of criminals, usually inside a vehicle — grew by 40% in 2021, compared to 2019 (before the pandemic). In absolute numbers, there were 42 cases last year, against 30 three years ago. By the beginning of May 2022, 4 cases had been recorded.

One of the amendments established that a suspected fraud operation is held by banks for up to 72 hours. In addition, the BC included the determination of the limit of R$ 1,000 for operations on digital channels with Pix and TED (Electronic Transfer Available) between individuals carried out at night, between 8 pm and 6 am.