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The Science of Persuasion
The first plenary session of the Finopolis Forum of Innovative Financial Technologies, dedicated to the topic of competition in the Russian financial market, has started successfully. It could not have been otherwise. Such masters of discussion as the Chairman of the Bank of Russia Elvira Nabiullina, the representative of Sberbank German Gref and the representative of VTB Andrey Kostin met here.
First, Mr Nabiullina accused big banks of trying to secure a “better place” for themselves by introducing new technologies, building their own infrastructure and offering it to the state in exchange for a monopoly on services.
The head of Sberbank objected that the state itself competes with business, which kills incentives for innovation.
The subsequent conversation concerned the introduction of universal QR codes (see Kommersant of September 28). Elvira Nabiullina tried to soften the wording, pointing out that it is impossible to present the universal QR code of the Central Bank as a struggle between regulators and a consortium of banks (the leader is Sberbank). market." In her opinion, this is "not a product", but an "infrastructure standard". The head of the Central Bank played with the head of VTB (I remind you, this is a bank that is not part of the consortium). As Andrey Kostin said: "If any bank, no matter how big it is, tries to impose small banks on us, define standards and determine approaches, we will not agree to this and will resist: "As much as possible." Of course, "Baby" VTB (the second bank in the Russian Federation by assets and capital) supports the introduction of QR codes according to the Central Bank standards, says Mr. Gref, if someone lags behind in technological development, they rush to protest against the state and regulate. He noted that the worst thing that can happen is "when the state listens and starts regulating."
However, later the bankers acted more unitedly. And as for marketplaces, which are accused of unfair competition and unprofitability, and as for artificial intelligence, it is better not to regulate them for now. Andrey Kostin said that it would be easier for banks to live without regulation. But the head of the central bank has now put an end to banking freedom, saying that everyone will “agree”, but this does not mean that they “agree”.
It was all very funny, but the point is that not everyone was convinced. This means that both the Central Bank and Sberbank, in particular, will continue to spend resources on sorting out QR.
And no matter how it ends, the process will affect the entire banking system. When asked if there would be a war, he answered, as in the old joke on Armenian radio: "No, but there will be a fight for peace, such that not a single stone will remain."