OREANDA-NEWS. On 11 November 2014, a conference "Individual Investment Accounts as an Innovation for Retail Investors in Russia" organized by the Russian National Association of Securities Market Participants (NAUFOR) was held. Among the delegates of the event were brokers, dealers and representatives of asset management companies.

Maria Ivanova, Vice President, Director for Development and Client Relations of National Settlement Depository (NSD), spoke at the conference. Her report was dedicated to a project of a centralized system of placement and purchase of UIT units on the basis of NSD; she pointed out a number of advantages of the new project. In particular, the mechanism of interactions between NSD, brokerage firms, asset management companies and specialized depositories which will be functioning in the one-stop-shop manner will allow an investor to buy UIT units directly from brokerage firms which will be conducting this operation as a standard broker procedure. The system's infrastructure will include an automated platform for processing the operations associated with selling, repaying and exchanging UIT units. The platform will let unify the formats of applications and automate the procedures of applying and processing. The accounting cycle of the operations will amount to 1 or 2 days from the application date.

Ms. Ivanova said: "Eventually, the centralized system of placement and purchase of UIT units on the basis of NSD will contribute to increased efficiency and attractiveness of the collective investment market, reduced expenses and labor costs as well as to the growth of attractiveness of individual investment accounts, a new product that will be launched in the market in early 2015."

According to the project's road map, in 2015, when legislative changes come into force, NSD plans to develop the technological platform and the information system. By January 2016, NSD plans to offer this service to market participants.