Cbank hopes core banks to join instant payment system in 2019

MOSCOW, Jan 21 (PRIME) -- Russia’s systemically important banks should join the instant payment system until the end of 2019, Central Bank Chairwoman Elvira Nabiullina told the State Duma, the parliament’s lower house, on Monday.

“The instant payment system is a very important project that will be launched later this month. The system will operate for a limited range of clients from the end of January as the banks will need to adapt their operating systems,” she said.

“From the end of February, the instant payment system will work for all clients of the banks that will have joined it. Other banks will gradually enter it. We hope that systemically important banks will join the system until the end of the year.”

Nabiullina also said that connection to the instant payment system must be compulsory for the banks, and that the corresponding legal amendments have already been sent to the State Duma.

The chairwoman said that there are monopolization problems on both Russia’s payment and the acquiring markets which need to be solved that may involve tighter regulatory measures.

The share of institutional investors including pension funds and insurance companies is too low in Russia while economic growth is impossible without long-terms investment, Nabiullina also said. The central bank plans to extend the list of permitted investment instruments for private pension funds and to eliminate barriers for public-private partnerships.

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