Risk of payment suspension: POFU explains how pensioners can avoid account blocking

Threat of payment suspension due to inactivity

The habit of leaving all received funds on a bank account without any transactions can create serious difficulties for elderly citizens. Financial institutions carefully monitor the activity of their clients, and any suspicion of non-compliance may lead to temporary restrictions on access to one's own savings.

In particular, the Pension Fund of Ukraine notes that if a person resides in a temporarily occupied territory and no expenditure operations are recorded on their account for six months, the pension payment may be suspended.

How to avoid checks and blocks

To avoid additional checks by the bank, it is sufficient to perform at least one transaction per month. However, apart from the risk of payment suspension, elderly clients often become targets for fraudsters. Quick access to funds via card makes them vulnerable to various manipulations.

It is worth noting that keeping the entire amount exclusively in cash is also not an optimal solution, as paper money is not protected from theft and does not generate financial income.

Card blocking most often occurs not because of the fact of receiving a pension, but due to strict requirements of bank financial monitoring. If a financial institution records atypical transfers, a sharp change in client behaviour, or identifies outdated personal data, access to funds is temporarily restricted. In such cases, the bank will require updating information or confirming the source of funds.

Strategy for diversifying funds

Financial experts traditionally advise applying the principle of "diversification", that is, distributing savings between different forms of storage:

• Part of the pension should be kept on a bank card for convenient payment of utility services and daily shopping in stores.
• Another part should be withdrawn in cash, creating a reliable reserve in case of power outages or technical failures in the banking system.