ANDREY KASHEVAROV: OUR GOAL IS TO ENABLE AND LEVEL COMPETITION IN BANKING SERVICES

Deputy Head of FAS Andrey Kashevarov was a speaker at the XV Annual Conference – “Regulating operations of credit organizations by the Bank of Russia”, organized by the Russian Banks Association

Deputy Head of FAS described FAS efforts on executing the Road Map for developing competition on financial markets.

“The banking sector is socially important for both physical and legal persons. Therefore, implementing the Road Map, the main goal that we set for ourselves is to enable and level competition on the market of financial services. I.e., on the one hand, ensure proper access of the population to financial services, and on the other – create such conditions that will enable small players on the financial market to successfully compete with large banks with state participations”, emphasized Andrey Kashevarov.

The speaker outlined the results of the work of FAS, the Ministry of Finances of Russia with involvement of the Bank of Russia towards creating competitive conditions for access of credit organizations to some types of activities and participation in subsidies programmes for soft financing.

“We believe that the current mechanisms of access of credit organizations to relevant types of activities should be simplified. Also, a unified approach should be elaborated to enable their access, excluding unreasonable requirements. The position of executive bodies on this issue was supported by the Government of the Russian Federation and in the near future we will start preparing the relevant amendments to the acts of different levels”, stated Deputy Head of FAS.

Another important aspect of implementing the Road Map is adopting the draft law by the State Duma in the first reading to facilitate elimination of the current interregional discrimination of banking services consumers.

“Today, consumers of financial services face overrated commissions set by particular credit organizations for inter-regional money transfers between accounts of physical persons, in spite of having these accounts in the same bank. Such operations do not create additional value for the bank because transfers are executed through the infrastructure of the same bank”, emphasized Deputy Head of FAS.

He pointed out that one of an important stage of executing the Road Map is a Governmental Decree that excludes the costs of payment acceptance services offered by banks and other organizations from economically justified costs of resource suppliers.

Andrey Kashevarov drew attention of the audience to the following issues requiring solutions such as:

- Changing the current procedure of interaction between territorial bodies of the pension Fund of the Russian Federation with credit companies organizing pension payments;

- Banning use of information about direct or indirect state participation in the authorized capital of an economic entity in advertising of financial services and financial operations.

Deputy Head of FAS highlighted the main directions of FAS work that do not require regulatory acts. In particular, it concerns joint informational letters of the Antimonopoly Service and the Bank of Russia for market participants that explain some aspects of activities in view of the norms of the law.

“We have already devised and issued explanations that unfair competition on the deposit market is unacceptable, and joint recommendations on the procedure for disclosing information about the size of remuneration charged from consumers for offering services with use of ATM and payment terminals”, added Andrey Kashevarov.

Summing up, Deputy Head of FAS stressed that the Antimonopoly Service continues efforts not only in the areas listed in the Road Map but also initiates  a number of events aimed at developing competition on the market of financial services.