The 18th congress of the Association of Russian Banks took place in Moscow on April 6, 2007. The items on the agenda included the success of Russia’s Bankization Program, improvements in the country’s monetary policies, development of the Russian banking market, and banking supervision (and its importance to the banks’ development and competitiveness).

Reports were presented by President of the Association G. Tosunyan, Chairman of the Central Bank of Russia S. Ignatiev, head of Federal Financial Markets Service O. Vyugin, Bank 24.ru Chairman Boris Dyakonov, and a number of Bank of Moscow, RosBank, and VTB executives.

In his report, Mr. Dyakonov addressed the problems in the sphere of refinancing schemes and spoke on the Association’s attempts to set up voluntary banking standards based on the best existing practices. He also suggested introducing the possibility of converting the so-called college loans (money provided to cover tuition fees) into special kinds of securities that could be bought from the government by the student’s prospective employer, and said it might also be worth it offering discounts on interest rates to graduates employed in the field the government is interested in.

‘One could complain of the poor legal regulation of banks for hours on end, but this won’t get you anywhere. Commercial banks would be much better off if they came up with concrete improvement proposals,’ Mr. Dyakonov said.

This information was reported by Bank24.ru’s press officer.