OREANDA-NEWS. On 10-11 December 2014, the 10th Annual International Repo Forum was held in Moscow. This year's name of the conference was "Financial Market 2015: Life under Sanctions."

Among the forum's organizers were the National Securities Market Association and Russian Repo Council supported by the Bank of Russia, International Capital Markets Association (ICMA) and National Settlement Depository (NSD), Russia's central securities depository.

The Repo Forum is an important event of the year for the financial community. The forum as a discussion site attracts representatives of regulators, professional market participants, independent experts and journalists. The format of the event implies a combination of leading market experts' reports with discussion panels; it allows the delegates sharing their plans and ideas and discussing them with the professional community.

Traditionally, NSD takes a proactive part in the forum. This year, the central securities depository was represented by five speakers; in addition to this, NSD organized two panel discussions.

Eddie Astanin, Chairman of the Executive Board, NSD, moderated a strategic panel discussion "Eastern Express: Heading to Alternative Markets". Representatives of Sberbank, VTB, Gazprombank, Moscow Exchange, Euroclear, the Russian Direct Investment Fund and the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China took part in the discussion. The delegates discussed advantages and prospects of expanding cooperation with Asian financial markets. Among raised issues were attraction of Asian investors to Russian companies' equity and debt capital, regulatory and tax barriers that prevent Russian companies' entering Asian exchanges, a need in investing time and human resources to build long term relations with Asian partners. In general, the participants of the discussion agreed that Asian money cannot replace all other resources and solve all problems. In any circumstance, their attraction to the country is a strategically important long term and labor intensive project that has to be implemented step by step.

Maria Krasnova, Deputy Chairman of Executive Board, NSD, together with representatives of the regulator, Moscow Exchange and ICMA discussed the situation in global markets during the panel "Global Trends in Market Development." Ms. Krasnova was speaking about the corporate actions reform's progress that allows to implement international standards and newest corporate actions processing technologies, refuse from traditional paper documents and contributes to record keeping institutions' involvement in corporate actions processing.

Maria Ivanova, Vice President for Development and Client Relations, NSD, moderated an international panel discussion "Russia in Global Integration of Record Keeping Infrastructure.'' Among the participants of the discussion were representatives of Euroclear, Clearstream, Citibank, Sberbank CIB and the European Repo Union. The delegates of the forum discussed an interest to the Russian stock market and its development as well as modern trends in financial institutions regulation in Europe and Russia. The participants of the panel discussion paid special attention to collateral management services' development.

Alina Akchurina, Managing Director for Collateral Management System Development, NSD, spoke at the panel discussion organized by the Russian Repo Council, and Georgy Uryutov, Director of Consolidated Economic Department, NSD, took part in the expert session "Price Centers in Russia: the Present and the Future."