BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

23/06/2008

Belarusian, Russian plastic card payment systems may be united

Belarusian and Russian retail payments systems, which use plastic cards, may be united, reported Belta. The decision was made at the 28th session of the Interbank Currency Council of central banks of Belarus and Russia. The session was held in Mogilev on June 20. Chairman of the Board of the National Bank of the Republic of Belarus (NBRB) Piotr Prokopovich, Chairman of the Bank of Russia, other representatives of the central banks of the two countries took part in the session.

The sides shared the best practices in several areas. Members of the Council made a conclusion that for the sake of organising and developing the retail payments systems they can be integrated using unified rules and standards on the basis of national payment cards. Corresponding agencies have been charged with establishing regular mutual exchange of statistics information about the development of the Belarusian and Russian markets of payment cards and with organising joint actions with representatives of leading Belarusian and Russian card payment systems in Q3 2008 for the sake of creating conditions for mutual acceptance of cards of these payment systems in Belarus and Russia.

The session also analysed the economic situation and the progress in implementing major avenues of the monetary management policy in Belarus and Russia in 2007 and 2008, including foreign currency policy. Performance of the two banking systems in 2007 was also discussed.

Speaking about practical avenues and prospects of improving the exchange rate shaping mechanism, participants of the session agreed it would be advisable to continue mutual consultations about this issue.

The session also tabled the bilateral balance of payments and the net liquidity balance of Belarus and Russia in 2007, approaches to developing deposit insurance in Belarus and Russia, changes of international reserves and foreign currency liquidity of the two central banks on the basis of definitions used as part of the IMF Special Data Dissemination Standard.

Source:

http://capital.trendaz.com/index.shtml?show=news&newsid=1230547&lang=EN

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