Dmitry Medvedev: "For us it is a priority that the future system rely on Russian technology. This will ensure the independence of our system, expand opportunities for customers, and resolve issues related to security and protecting information from unauthorised access."
Dmitry Medvedev’s opening remarks:
Government meeting to discuss a national card payment system
Colleagues, we continue our work on the card payment system – our national payment system. We held several meetings on this subject in different locations, including on the legal basis for this system and the choice of an optimal model and operator. I have invited you here to compare notes and check how the work is proceeding. An added incentive is the fact that the Government and the Bank of Russia have received a presidential instruction to submit an action plan for a national card payment system before 1 July.
The aim is clear: By creating our own payment system, we want to avoid problems linked to unilateral card service discontinuations and breaches of confidentiality. Russia is not unique in tackling this objective, and the reason why we do this is not rooted in any political complications. Generally, it has always loomed large, though, admittedly, it looks more pressing today than, say, several years ago, when we conceived the idea to approve a relevant law.
Dmitry Medvedev: "By creating our own payment system, we want to avoid problems linked to unilateral card service discontinuations and breaches of confidentiality. Russia is not unique in tackling this objective, and the reason why we do this is not rooted in any political complications."
Generally speaking, we must minimise the risks involved in operations of international payment system inside this country and ensure the fail-safety, stability and efficiency of these services. This is important both for banks that are partners to these systems and for individual holders of payment instruments. We proceed from the assumption that a national card payment system should provide consumers with more opportunities for making a choice, and this is really the most important thing. I am not saying that we just have to fight the foreign systems. This is wrong and, in fact, a breach of principles of general competition. But we certainly should have a reasonable alternative to foreign systems, including the most popular ones like Visa, MasterCard and some others.
Dmitry Medvedev: "We proceed from the assumption that a national card payment system should provide consumers with more opportunities for making a choice, and this is really the most important thing. I am not saying that we just have to fight the foreign systems. This is wrong and, in fact, a breach of principles of general competition. But we certainly should have a reasonable alternative to foreign systems, including the most popular ones like Visa, MasterCard and some others."
In this context, it is highly important to secure cooperation with the operators I’ve just mentioned and streamline their operations in the Russian Federation. For this purpose, we have taken a number of steps, including amendments to the law On the National Payment System, a well-known document that has caused heated debates in the expert community as well as among the foreign payment systems and ordinary users of payment instruments. This law envisages a number of economic undertakings aimed at protecting the interests of the Russian public and banks. The depositing rules and the procedure for applying some or other sanctions should be imposed by the Government of the Russian Federation. This bill has been submitted to the State Duma, and as far as I know, the first reading has been scheduled for today, so we will be discussing these issues simultaneously with our colleagues in parliament. A Government resolution on this issue is being drafted to be adopted in furtherance of this initial proposal. I believe that we could focus on these issues to understand what we should do next.
It’s clear that to create a national card payment system we need to determine the operator and to create an operations and clearing centre. Work on this issue is also underway.
Dmitry Medvedev: "It’s clear that to create a national card payment system we need to determine the operator and to create an operations and clearing centre. Work on this issue is also underway."
We discussed the technical basis for the future system before. The choice is clear to us. We should give priority to Russian technology. It should ensure the independence of this system and its infrastructure and expand client opportunities, and resolve the issue of system security and its protection from unauthorised access.
We should analyse thoroughly the issues that we discussed before, namely the existing payment systems, and subsequently make the choice, just as we have agreed to do.
Therefore, this will be an interim meeting.
<…>
