Our progress / Quotes

24.06.2016 00:00 / Elvira Nabiullina

Elvira NabiullinaBanks and non-banks will increasingly share their scope of services Three years ago, the Bank of Russia became the financial market megaregulator, assuming all regulatory and oversight functions for the financial industry. Our task was to come up with balanced approaches to non-banking regulation, especially where statutory gaps exist. In banking regulation we have been continually pursuing the implementation of international standards.

08.09.2015 14:10 / Olga Goncharova

Olga GoncharovaFinnopolis: Financial Technologies to Drive Development On 17 September, the inaugural financial innovation forum named Finnopolis 2015 will open in Kazan. The forum is a first for Tatarstan and in many ways, for the entire financial and banking sector.

27.08.2015 15:08 / Alexey Timofeev

Alexey TimofeevNew Role for SROs: a well-planned revolution The new Financial Market SRO Act, signed by the President, is a revolution in Russian financial market regulation and oversight.

28.11.2014 15:03 / Elvira Nabiullina

Elvira NabiullinaOUR POLICY GOALS MUST BE CLEAR A little over a year ago, the Bank of Russia became megaregulator, spreading its control and oversight functions to other financial market segments besides banking. It’s a mass of work, tens of thousands companies: 572 in insurance, 1790 in collective investment, almost 4.5 thousand in microfinance, some 8 thousand pawn shops et cetera. Compare this with a mere 842 companies in banking services, 790 of which are banks.

29.04.2014 15:56 / Denis Spirin

Denis SpirinThe Ideal Model: Why We Need the New Corporate Code The new Corporate Governance Code, passed by the Government and Russia’s financial market megaregulator, the Bank of Russia, deserves to be the news of the day. Sceptics may object that the Code is merely a recommendation, and the best practice of corporate governance contained therein is detached from reality.

09.04.2014 14:06 / Anatoly Karachinsky

Anatoly KarachinskyIDENTIFYING PERFORMANCE RESERVES OF FINANCIAL MARKETS Russia’s financial market produces a staggering billion-plus paper documents yearly. Every individual has to open a bank account, buy insurance, pay fines, taxes, and housing bills. Most people do it by signing papers and wasting time in queues. Most companies have to keep paper copies of their official reports and electronic transactions.

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Reforms that benefit the market

11.09.2013 13:45 / Alexander Voloshin

More than three years have elapsed since Moscow International Financial Center Taskforce was established. We have managed to achieve various degrees of progress in all key performance areas of Moscow’s development as an international financial center.

Remarkable results have been achieved in financial market infrastructure. Laws have been passed to clamp down on the use of insider information, streamline clearing procedures, and simplify securities issue. After decades of debate, the Central Depositary was finally established, which opened our market to new types of foreign investors.

The stock exchange is the heart of any financial center. Moscow Exchange, formed in December 2011, successfully floated its own shares and today shows dynamic growth as a trading floor. IT is rapidly improving, Т+ trading has been introduced, new innovative financial instruments are rolled out, and there is a listing reform in the pipeline. The overall effort is directed at making Moscow Exchange a comfortable trading environment for issuers and investors, both Russian and international. We also expect the exchange to become an effective privatization tool.

MIFC Taskforce has taken part in a substantial Civil Code reform. The Civil Code amendments are de facto the first thorough reform attempt in civil law since the mid-90’s, the time of sea-change towards market economy and the shaping of new liaisons and institutions. Today we have the opportunity to put our experience into practice and stipulate norms that reflect economic development goals. This process covers corporate law, the regulation of financial transactions, intellectual property rights protection and many other issues.

Financial market regulation reform commenced this year with the arrival of a Central Bank-based megaregulator.

It is no secret that the majority of financial businesses today exist as part of diversified financial holdings. These holdings have actually become risk consolidation hubs. Dispersed regulators fail to see the complete picture of these risks – this clearly hinders effective oversight. Moreover, market participants have been suffering from lack of regulatory arbitration and excessive red tape.

The switch to a unified regulator is in itself an ambitious institutional reform. The new megaregulator must have sufficient responsibility, powers, instruments and human resources to launch effective oversight and also to provide stimuli for the development of the entire financial market.

We all expect the Central Bank-based megaregulator to boost the quality of regulation and oversight. The Central Bank’s experience in banking regulation and oversight must become a quality benchmark for regulation and oversight development in other financial industry sectors.

In June, the government signed off the MIFC Roadmap, the action plan for the next few years. It will be performed in a joint effort by the federal and Moscow government, the lawmakers, the Central Bank, and the stock exchange. We will improve regulation and oversight, create opportunities for long-term investment, build market infrastructure, set up a better tax regime for investment, and make the city a friendlier place.

The Roadmap is a logical extension of the action plan adopted by the government in 2010, most of which has been carried out.

How the new Roadmap came into being is of utmost importance: the draft emerged from the grassroots level, originated by market players. Tasks that involve quality of financial regulation and financial infrastructure development are best left to the market, not the bureaucrats. Our effort is joined by all financial market segments, lawyers, auditors, economists and business owners. Officials take part as well, and help bring all interested parties to a consensus at the earliest stages of debate, instead of restraining market initiatives.

I would like to highlight that the Taskforce operates primarily on a volunteer basis, because all participants are driven by the interests of the market. This is the keystone of our joint success in the future.

28.11.2014 15:03 / Elvira Nabiullina

OUR POLICY GOALS MUST BE CLEAR A little over a year ago, the Bank of Russia became megaregulator, spreading its control and oversight functions to other financial market segments besides banking. It’s a mass of work, tens of thousands companies: 572 in insurance, 1790 in collective investment, almost 4.5 thousand in microfinance, some 8 thousand pawn shops et cetera. Compare this with a mere 842 companies in banking services, 790 of which are banks.

29.04.2014 15:56 / Denis Spirin

The Ideal Model: Why We Need the New Corporate Code The new Corporate Governance Code, passed by the Government and Russia’s financial market megaregulator, the Bank of Russia, deserves to be the news of the day. Sceptics may object that the Code is merely a recommendation, and the best practice of corporate governance contained therein is detached from reality.

09.04.2014 14:06 / Anatoly Karachinsky

IDENTIFYING PERFORMANCE RESERVES OF FINANCIAL MARKETS Russia’s financial market produces a staggering billion-plus paper documents yearly. Every individual has to open a bank account, buy insurance, pay fines, taxes, and housing bills. Most people do it by signing papers and wasting time in queues. Most companies have to keep paper copies of their official reports and electronic transactions.

25.02.2014 13:30 / Anna Kuznetsova

New listing rules will boost transparency, strengthen corporate governance Moscow Exchange is currently reforming its listing rules, a process that will strengthen the market for both issuers of stocks and bonds, while providing domestic investors with an opportunity to diversify their investment portfolios.

28.01.2014 15:10 / Ksenia Yudaeva

Reserve Currencies and the Role of the Ruble The Bank of Russia policy focus has shifted to inflation targeting, sparking a debate on intervention practice and prompting us to reconsider the prospects of the Ruble as a reserve currency.

14.10.2013 13:35 / Alexei Kuznetsov

Taxes and Russian IFC’s Competitive Edge Taxation should not hinder financial market development. This is the motto of MIFC Taskforce’s Tax Project Group that drafts tax reform proposals.

02.10.2013 12:00 / Sergei Shvetsov

The Regulator Needs to Hear the Market A month has passed since the financial markets megaregulator was established. We have solved the key task for the transitional period of FFMS-Bank of Russia merger — maintaining continuity of service, essential for the functioning of the market. We have now initiated systematic analysis of current affairs — from the regulation, control and oversight perspective — in each financial market segment.

11.09.2013 13:45 / Alexander Voloshin

Reforms that benefit the market More than three years have elapsed since Moscow International Financial Center Taskforce was established. We have managed to achieve various degrees of progress in all key performance areas of Moscow’s development as an international financial center.

11.09.2013 12:15 / Igor Jurgens

Self-regulation is balancing rights and responsibility The adopted financial market self-regulation law and the implementation of related practices is an evolutionary step for production forces, to borrow a scientific term. From a common perspective, self-regulation is an absolute must, with the increasing importance of roles played by civil society and the business community. The pendulum has swung from unchecked democracy of the early 90’s to equal partnership of the 00’s to state supremacy. The pendulum must be kept on track: the state is unfit to handle all regulatory functions without considering the interests and healthy intentions of the business community.

11.09.2013 11:59 / Oleg Vyugin

On megaregulator priorities The key starting objective for the new regulator is to reconsider the paradigm of financial regulation based on the prospective advantages of the ongoing megaregulator project. We must aim to minimize the negative impact of structural overhaul of the regulation system.

11.09.2013 11:45 / Alexey Timofeev

The market anticipates Central Bank’s attention to business specifics The establishment of a Central Bank-based megaregulator is a pivotal change in the entire financial market regulation and oversight system. The reform is one of the key phases of system development. An outstanding contribution to the financial market has been made by the Central Bank predecessors – FFMS, FCSM, Minfin, the Russian Insurance Supervision Service and the Labor Ministry, and it would be inappropriate to call the new reform a clean-up of their failed attempts. Using failures as a pretext to delegate financial market regulation functions means going back to square one, a way to justify any regulatory measures that would appear an improvement by mere contrast. This is misleading, since the financial market that has taken shape in Russia is far from its nascent stage.