Medvedev and his first deputy chief of staff Vladislav Surkov attending a State Council meeting on Wednesday.
President Dmitry Medvedev had to remind Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin to mind his manners Wednesday after a testy debate about a national payments system with Vneshekonombank chief Vladimir Dmitriyev.
Dmitriyev said a law was needed to create a national payment system that would be operated by a noncommercial entity and could include some 80 percent of Russian banks. Currently, several regional systems are operated by commercial banks, primarily state retail giant Sberbank, and these are not enough, he said.
“The idea is that [banks] could work through the operator with the public and cooperate with state bodies,” Dmitriyev told a meeting of the State Council, Interfax reported.
VEB is “ready to become the platform,” he said. Otherwise, a planned postal bank based on bailed-out Svyaz Bank and Russian Post could serve as the operator.
