OREANDA-NEWS. May 27, 2011. ARMADA (MICEX, RTS: ARMD) hereby announces that its subsidiary was declared the winner of  a tender held by Universal Electronic Card OJSC for the design and maintenance of the software complex Unified Commercial Services Portal. The project is part of private-public IT program to roll out the Universal Electronic Card (UEC), in which investments are estimated at RUB 150bn – RUB 200bn (approx. USD 5.5bn – USD 7.3bn) over the next five years. UEC may potentially become an Electronic ID for Russian citizens.

"A Universal Electronic Card (UEC) is potentially one of the largest projects on the Russian IT market. ARMADA expects to participate on a large-scale and long-term basis in the UEC project, including the distribution of infrastructure that is being developed for UEC in the regions where the cards will be issued to Russians, and where they will be used to pay for public and commercial services", General Director of ARMADA Roman Kruglyakov stated.

The UEC project for Russian citizens is provided for in Federal Law No. 210-FZ “On arranging the provision of state and municipal services” dated July 27, 2010. The universal electronic card - to be developed and introduced for the purpose of registration and payment for such services - will be issued to all citizens of Russia.

The universal electronic card is expected to ensure the provision of public services, including pension fund and medical services, as well as the option to use the UEC to make payments for utilities, purchase tickets, pay for Internet services, etc. As the project is deployed , the number of public and commercial services that are available and can be paid for using the UEC could reach several thousand. Another goal of the project is to create a national payment system that would be based on existing standards and match international payment systems in terms of transaction volume. The Universal Electronic Card OJSC has been appointed by the Russian government as coordinator and operator for the phase-in of the universal electronic card. The company was founded by Sberbank in cooperation with Uralsib and Ak Bars Bank.

As part of the contract with UEC OJSC, ARMADA will create a Unified Commercial Services Portal. The use of the portal will enable all owners of UECs to view information about services listed in the register, about the providers of such services and commence the provision of service. Suppliers of commercial services will be able to organize business processes related to the phase-in and provision of new services via the portal.

In the project ARMADA will use its experience in the development of public and commercial software systems: the public services portal of Russia, the Sberbank portal, as well as cooperation with the Russian Telecommunications, Economic Development and Finance Ministries, website design leadership.