‘Investors share a common frustration with the issue of a Centralized Depositary remaining unresolved. It makes no sense to them whatsoever, given our ambition of building an international financial centre’, he said.

Head of MICEX also expressed hope that the drafted Centralized Depositary Act will be discussed at the next session of the Council for the Financial Market Development, and later adopted by the State Duma during the autumn session.

‘In this draft we seem to have several moot points with the esteemed PARTAD (Professional Association of Registrars, Transfer Agents and Depositaries) and the registrars”, he said.

Aganbegyan pointed out that Brazil, South Korea and Germany have demonstrated that a Centralized Depositary is ‘a most powerful liquidity return magnet’. ‘The moot points will be reviewed by Alexander Voloshin (head of Moscow Financial Centre taskforce) and later by Alexey Kudrin (Deputy Prime Minister) at the next session of the Council for the Financial Market Development”, he added. Apart from the Centralized Depositary, investors are concerned with the pension reform and the mutual funds reform. “A common opinion for all investors is that Russia as a resource-driven economy has had enough cash in the country, and yet somehow this cash fails to aggregate to pad the domestic market”, said Aganbegyan.

A third concern for investors is lack of a central counterparty option for deferred payment trades, he said.

Project Group №1, Ruben Aganbegyan, Alexei Kudrin, Alexander Voloshin