PEOPLE SHOULD HAVE A CHOICE OF ORGANIZATIONS FOR PENSIONS AND SOCIAL PAYMENTS

FAS intends to suppress any anticompetitive practices in this field and asks to report all violations to FAS so it can respond promptly

Head of FAS Department for Control over Financial Markets, Olga Sergeeva talked about it on 22 November at the VI National Payment Forum:

“It is important that consumers have an actual right to choose organizations, aided by which they receive these payments. Often, however, we see that the citizens’ right of choice is limited exactly by the bodies that make the payments”.

She informed that special Road Maps for developing competition in the market of financial services are devised for preventing and suppressing anticompetitive practices in the course of organizing how citizens receive pensions and other social payments, as well as eliminating obstacles when choosing credit organizations to transfer the payments.

According to Olga Sergeeva, increasing awareness of the population and economic entities about all authorized methods of receiving payments and possibilities to offer services under the frame of such payments should decrease the number of violations. A special clause is included in the Action Plan.

The speaker paid special attention to creating legal conditions for proving reasonable tariffs for utility services by directly banning recording expenses for organizing acceptance of payment for such resources.

“We propose to exclude commission, paid to credit organizations, from utility tariffs so that people would not pay double for the services when they choose a different payment method or another credit organization”, explained Head of FAS Department for Control over Financial Markets.

Answering the question about the conditions for allowing credit organizations to participant in soft-financing programmes, Olga Sergeeva highlighted that FAS insists that the state share and the entity’s own capital should not be the criteria for selecting credit organizations.

She underlined that “provided that high-quality products are offered, all banks must be perceived equally respected regardless of their capital size”.

Background:

To implement 2018 – 2020 National Competition Development Plan in Russia approved by No. 618 Order of the President of the Russian Federation of 21.12.2017, No. 1697-r Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation, the Government approved the Action Plan (Road Map) for developing competition in sectors of Russian economy and transition of particular spheres of natural monopolies from the state of natural monopoly to the state of competitive market in 2018 – 2020.

FAS formed an Inter-Departmental Working Group for developing competition on the financial services market (No. 535/18 Order of 23.04.2018) to achieve those goals.