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For Mikhail Fridman's (pictured above) system to work, it would require changes to the law on personal information, and the legislation will be seriously reworked in favor of mobile operators, a source close to the Duma's leadership said.
Alfa Group co-owner Mikhail Fridman is hoping to convince President Dmitry Medvedev at an upcoming meeting that banks need access to cell phone operators' client information to provide Russians with payment cards.
The government is preparing to submit to the State Duma legislation to create a national payment system, and state lenders and Vneshekonombank have already offered to help provide cards. But Fridman will propose an alternative project at Medvedev's Feb. 11 meeting on modernization in Tomsk, a source close to the businessman told Vedomosti.
Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Sobyanin, who heads the government administration, has taken an interest in the project and asked Fridman to propose it to the president, a source in the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs said.
"We're suggesting that mobile operators' data on clients be used to produce and offer them bank cards," a source in Alfa Bank's management said.
Under the plan, a bank would ask an operator to collect data from certain customers — for example, their gender, age and money spent on communications. For those clients whom it deems reliable, the bank would send by mail a not-yet-activated card or an offer to visit a bank branch and pick one up. The card could be real or virtual, using a password for access to Internet payments.
The bank would then open an account for the client, through which all of the transactions would be conducted, but "the possibility of moving funds between bank accounts and cell phone accounts is being discussed with mobile operators," the Alfa Bank source said. They are also discussing an option to allow clients to pay for goods and services from the bank account through Bluetooth-equipped mobile phones.
If the program were started now, people could begin using it much sooner than the costly national payment system, the source in Alfa Bank said.
A source in the government agreed that those were the project's main advantages.
As of Dec. 31, 2009, 207.91 million SIM cards were registered in Russia, according to AC&M-Consulting. Central Bank data shows that as of Oct. 1, 2009, more than 121 million bank cards had been issued in Russia. But the percentage of people who own a bank card is far lower — a VTsIOM poll in 2007 found that just 32 percent of respondents said they had one.
People discussing the national payment system have not been thinking about how to make the project profitable or how to create the infrastructure to accept cards, not to mention whether the system will eventually become profitable, said Georgy Gorshakov, a member of the management board at 24.
He said he was unaware of Fridman's proposal. "Our bank thinks more about traditional ways to attract clients," Gorshakov said.
Banks are already discussing the idea with operators. The Alfa Bank source said the lender was in talks with and MegaFon, in which Alfa Group holds stakes. Mobile TeleSystems "is holding talks with a series of banks about the possibility of issuing cards to network clients," a spokesperson said.
MegaFon has discussed the idea with banks, spokeswoman Tatyana Zvereva said.
Fridman was not available for comment, and spokespeople for Alfa Bank, VimpelCom, Sberbank and VEB declined comment.
For the system to work, it would require changes to the law on personal information. The legislation will be seriously reworked in favor of mobile operators, a source close to the Duma's leadership said. But "there are no concrete proposals in the Duma yet," the source said.
The government source said Alfa's proposal was timely, since the idea of an electric citizens' card is being discussed and it could just as easily be electronic.
