Left to right: Steven Palstermans, Head of Russia, CIS & Mongolia, Central & Eastern Europe, SWIFT. Nikolay Egorov, CEO, NDC. Christian Kothe, Head of Central & Eastern Europe, SWIFT. Maria Ivanova, Business Development Director, NDC. John Falk, Senior Manager, Securities Markets Infrastructure, SWIFT.

The ability of financial institutions to access NDC, Russia’s central settlement depository for the servicing of state securities, via SWIFT Alliance Lite is a major step forward in aligning Russia’s financial infrastructure to global standards, NDC’s director general, Nikolay Egorov, told Sibos delegates at a session on Russian settlement issues.

Egorov, also senior VP and member of the executive board of Russian exchange MICEX, said that adopting Alliance Lite would permit clients to access both NDC and other financial institutions in Russia and worldwide using internationally recognised standards.

Commented on the memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed by NDC and SWIFT earlier this year, he said, “SWIFT and ISO are the international standards for secure, automated communication between financial market participants globally, reducing operational costs and risks and enabling improved straight-through processing. By allowing all our customers to use ISO standards and SWIFT to conduct their business with NDC, we are supporting them in globalising their capability to conduct business around the world and not just in Russia.

Under the terms of the MoU, NDC has agreed to co-operate to support the adoption of ISO standards in Russia. A key element of this co-operation is the joint work by SWIFT and NDC to encourage the use of Alliance Lite by NDC customers.

“The addition of SWIFT Alliance Lite as a channel for communication with NDC is especially significant for our customers who will benefit from the cost efficiencies and the ease of access Alliance Lite provides,” said Egorov.

“NDC’s addition of Alliance Lite as a communications channel supports its strategic plan to further adopt international standards to improve automation in order to reduce costs and risks for its customers,” added Alain Raes, chief executive, EMEA at SWIFT. “NDC will be able to offer a range of new services using Alliance Lite, building on the benefits its customers already achieve by communicating via SWIFT, and we look forward to working closely with NDC in the future to maximise the value we are offering to our mutual customers.”

Russian Central Bank Payment Systems Director Oleg Perestenko said BESP, the RTGS system introduced in 2007, would demonstrate to international investors the “openness and transparency” of Russia’s financial sector. Effort now will go into making the system – which covers 11 time zones and replaces two-day with realtime settlement – “more efficient and less risky”.

He identified as new business opportunities presented by the infrastructure real-time money transfer to and from money markets via MICEX and redistribution of intraday liquidity. All credit institutions will participate in the system as from 2010.



Back to headlines