OREANDA-NEWS. The Chamber of Accounts proposed to oblige all banks operating in Russia to connect to the Russian SWIFT equivalent, which has about 400 users. But the “daughters” of foreign banks with the Central Bank system do not work, including the three largest ones.

The Accounts Chamber proposed to oblige all Russian credit organizations to participate in the Bank of Russia Financial Reporting System (SPFS), which was created in 2014 amid fears of disconnection of Russian banks from the international SWIFT network. This is stated in the report of the Accounts Chamber. In the case of legislative implementation, this requirement will primarily affect the Russian subsidiaries of foreign banks.

There are 473 credit organizations in Russia. According to the Central Bank, as of April 1, SPFS has 401 users, including banks (branches of some of them are listed as individual clients), non-bank credit organizations, as well as Rosneft, Gazprom Neft, Atomenergoprom, and VEB state corporation. RF, energy company "T Plus", etc. Among the three banks that did not join SPFS were systemic subsidiaries of the Russian banking system: UniCredit Bank (eighth in terms of assets, 1.35 trillion rubles), Raiffeisenbank (tenth, 1.1 trillion rubles) and Rosbank (11 place, 1.08 trillion rubles), as well as Citibank, ING Bank, OTP Bank, Deutsche Bank, etc. Among the major Russian banks, Tinkoff and Vostochny were not connected to the SPFS.

Foreign companies and banks can also become members of SPFS. As the media wrote in November, Belarusian Belgazprombank, owned by Gazprom and Gazprombank, became the first participant of the Russian SWIFT not from Russia. Last week, Alla Bakina, director of the department of the national payment system at the Central Bank, said (according to the Russian media) that the Central Bank had already concluded agreements with two non-residents on participation in the SPFS, and the regulator agreed with five more contracts.