Information published at the portal of regulatory acts reads that absence of the necessary regulatory standards creates risks “connected with funds transfer by operators and service operators of the payment infrastructure”. It occurs due to the fact that Russia’s legislation does not stipulate responsibility for non-performance of information services.
“In that regard there is a possibility of inflicting real damage to the operators in relation to money transfer and (or) service operators of the payment infrastructure, which correlates with absence of the authorized body supervising “service operators of critical infrastructure” and “service operators of the critically-significant infrastructure”, - reads the reference of the Ministry of Finance.
It is pointed out that forming of requirements to the activity of “service operator of a critically significant infrastructure” will allow the government to find those responsible for improper performance or non-performance of information services.
Today during the International Bank Conference in Sochi, Alexander Murichev, the Executive Vice-President of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs and Chairman of the Bank Counsel of the “Russia” Association, claimed that due to the threat of exclusion of Russian banks from SWIFT, he offered the Central Bank to set up Russia’s own settlement system.
”We must organize an independent settlement infrastructure. There are Russian settlement system operating in Russia that offer a wider range of functionality than that of SWIFT, and we must at least set up an internal settlement system so as to be ready for international situation deterioration should it occur”, — clarified Murichev, reports press-service of “Russia” Association.
Back in April 2014 it became known that Russia’s Ministry of Finance considers revising Russian legislation with amendments that would allow for a seamless access of Russian banks to the SWIFT system.
“We are currently trying to figure out how to word status and requirements to SWIFT in the legislation, since a great many banks use its services and it must carry out uninterrupted operation on par with payment systems” clarified Alexey Moiseev, the then Deputy Chief of the Ministry of Finance.
In August 2014 reportedly the Central Bank of Russia instructed Russian banks to work out propositions regarding creation of the Russian system of interbank messaging that could replace SWIFT.
“It is an attempt to increase confidentiality of interbank and customer operations”, — explained representative of one of the banks. Information exchanged between Russian banks via SWIFT becomes also accessible to foreign counterparties, in some cases it may result in serious problems. For instance, when it comes to operation of the companies sanctioned by the US and EU.
In most cases Russian counterparties use correspondent account in US bank for USD transactions between each other. Americans are prohibited to cooperate with the sanctioned companies, that is why the bank with the correspondent account may block the suspicious transaction or even go as far as blocking the account.
Should sanctions be expanded Russia banks can simply be blocked from the SWIFT system, which will significantly complicate any foreign currency transactions. That is exactly how Iranian banks were cut off the USD market back in 2012.
It was then that Chief Deputy of the Minister of Finance, Sergey Storchak, claimed that Russian exporters had growing concerns regarding security of the foreign currency profits: all payments flow through interbank cooperation channels and presence of the sanction list makes fund-holders worry.
SWIFT is a Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication. SWIFT transmits 1.8 billion messages annually and processes over $6 trillion worth of payments and binds together over 10 thousand financial organizations in 210 countries. Under SWIFT By-Laws each country organizes SWIFT National Member Group and SWIFT National User Group uniting all SWIFT users. Such a group in Russia is called Rosswift (Russian National SWIFT Association), according to which Russia is ranked second following the US in terms of SWIFT users’ count.
Bloomberg is one of the leading providers of financial information for financial market experts. Their main product is Bloomberg Professional service, which allows you to access current and historic prices on almost any global stock market and a lot of non-stock markets, Bloomberg newsletters and that of other leading mass media, electronic system of bonds and securities trade.
Reuters is one of the leading providers of financial information for financial market experts. Their main products include terminals with access to electronic trading platforms (Reuters Dealing) and terminals for receiving and analyzing financial information (Reuters 3000 Xtra). Information terminals can grant access to current and historic prices on almost any global stock market and a lot of non-stock markets.
One other crucial element of the financial information providers is TARGET that allows you to make real-time international settlements within European Union, correspondent members of which are some depository institutions of the Russian Federation.
Source: RBC