Fire in the Central Bank and the project of an independent payment system

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

What did happen on the evening of August 24 on the top floor of the main building of the Central Bank at 12 Neglinnaya? The semi-official media assured readers that the fire did not damage the documents of the Central Bank and forgot about this story. But it looks like some papers could have burned. There are many questions, let's try to look for answers.

The fire, caused by either a short circuit in the wiring or a faulty computer, spread over an area of 30 square meters. m. On the same evening, notes about the incident appeared in several major publications. The headlines said the fire had not damaged the Central Bank's records. The editors took responsibility for this statement, because the press service of the Bank of Russia, apparently, did not dare to articulate clearly the thesis about the safety of documents. Really, as a result of the fire, which 23 units of equipment came to extinguish, not a single paper was burnt?

Sources of Our Version reported that the burning office could contain tender and project documentation for most of the Central Bank's IT projects, in which third-party contractors participate. Among these securities, there were probably documents on the cooperation of the Central Bank with group of companies "Lanit" … And this cooperation concerned the development of the Prospective Payment System (PPP) - a platform that should ensure the independence of the domestic financial system and instant settlements between its participants.

PPP is an important tool designed to protect the Russian economy in the face of Western sanctions. The Bank of Russia planned to begin the transition to this system in July 2018, and from 2019 the regulator was supposed to use only it. The tender for the development of PPP, which was won by Lanit Group of Companies, one of the largest domestic IT holdings, was held in 2014. But then, as is usually the case in such megaprojects, something went wrong. In the spring of 2018, the Central Bank unilaterally terminated the contract with Lanit.

The cost of developing the PPP was about 2 billion rubles, in four incomplete years the contractor could receive from the Bank of Russia about 1.5 billion rubles. In April 2018, IT specialists filed a lawsuit against Nabiullina's department in order to invalidate the termination of the contract and receive the remaining amount. It is not clear at the moment what state the Promising payment system is in and when it will fully work.

The result of the development of the PPP by the contractor selected in 2014 was predictable long before today. According to the former deputy chairman of the Central Bank Mikhail Senatorov, Lanit was not going to create a payment system from scratch, but was planning to introduce in Russia the developments of the Italian company SIA S.p. A. According to Senatorov, these developments are poorly compatible with Russian legislation. The very idea of increasing the independence of the domestic financial system at the expense of a foreign product also raises questions.

At the beginning of 2018 founder of "Lanit" Georgy Gensdied suddenly while on holiday at a ski resort. And now, in the event of a fire in the Central Bank, documents related to the development of the PPP could burn out. It is quite possible that these two events are not connected in any way, but we cannot reject such a version either. Especially when you consider that the relationship of Russian bankers with Georgy Gens was not limited to contracts for the development of IT systems. In March 2017, an investigation was published, the authors of which claim that Gens, along with the sharks of Russian shadow banking, could participate in the withdrawal of 22 billion US dollars from Russia.

The fire in the main building of the Bank of Russia, which happened against the background of rumors about the "study" of Elvira Nabiullina and her team by the security forces, looks suspicious. Some commentators believe that the version about the destruction of documents with some sensitive information for the head of the Central Bank does not deserve attention. They explain this by the fact that the paper could be shredded in a shredder without any fuss, but this argument looks naive. Any document has a storage period and grounds for destruction. Therefore, you cannot just shove it into the grinder - you need to draw up an act with the signature of the person in charge, who, in which case, will have to answer unpleasant questions. And fires, after all, they happen by themselves, even in buildings with good wiring and fire alarms, such as the main building of the Central Bank.