Russia’s mobile operators warn they’ll block bank calls starting October 15 if they aren’t labeled
Russia’s Digital Development Ministry has asked the central bank to make sure banks are complying with a requirement to label mass calls, the Russian business daily Kommersant reported. Digital Development Minister Maksut Shadayev sent the request in a letter to Elvira Nabiullina, the head of Russia’s central bank.
According to the letter, the Digital Development Ministry received a joint appeal in September from Russia’s “Big Four” mobile operators: Beeline, MegaFon, MTS, and T2. The operators warned that, starting October 15, they would begin blocking calls from Russia’s largest banks — Alfa-Bank, VTB, GPB, Renaissance Credit, Sberbank, Sovcombank, and T-Bank — because those banks had not signed agreements to label their calls.
The operators say more than 90% of banking-sector companies and “nearly 100%” of companies in other sectors have already signed labeling agreements, while the largest banks either refuse to sign or have signed but do not comply. The “Big Four” asked Shadayev to relay that information to the central bank.
Andrei Yemelin, head of the National Financial Market Council, said the largest banks are refusing to sign labeling agreements because they believe operators are misinterpreting the law. In the banks’ view, the law makes it the telecom operator’s responsibility to deliver the label to the subscriber.
Sberbank believes that “the procedure for transmitting information about the caller that follows from the law should apply only to actions by the telecom operator.”
A telecom industry source told Kommersant that large banks account for 95% of bank-related spam calls.
Mobile operators stopped displaying the “bank” label on calls from Sberbank, VTB, and Alfa-Bank starting in January 2026.
Operators have been required to label corporate calls since September 1, 2025, as part of efforts to combat fraud. Labeling costs the “Big Four” operators an average of 30 kopecks per call, according to Kommersant, with the fee charged to the party initiating the call regardless of whether it goes through.
Experts polled by the newspaper said labeling costs a large bank up to 1 billion rubles a year and costs the entire market up to 20 billion rubles.
At the same time, Russian authorities have used the fight against telephone fraud as an occasion to tighten legislation in the digital sphere.
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