The National Depository Center (NDC), Russia’s only settlement depository servicing the full range of debt and equity securities of Russian issuers, and Russias Professional Association of Registrars, Transfer Agents and Depositories (PARTAD)sign the agreement aimed at implementation of Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) standards within all categories of market participants on the basis of Straight Through Processing (STP).
Under the agreement parties will promote improvements to EDI standards. The coordination of the efforts will be based on the following five principles:
1. Focus on the results. Strong partnership directed to improve the quality of services and increase the amount of data processing in this segment.
2. Optimal balance between Russian and international standards. NDC and PARTAD realise the necessity of national standards adaptation to the foreign investors requirements for efficient integration of the Russian market into the international system. The parties agreed to exchange EDI standards implementation programs in order to take into consideration expert opinion and the practices of the companies partners in Russia and abroad. According to foreign experts a considerable part of Russian internal EDI standards already conforms to international requirements.
3. Strengthening of Russian markets competitive advantages. Most Russian securities are issued in electronic form. This significant competitive advantage should be efficiently used in the implementation of further plans for the development of an international financial center in Russia.
4. The development of straight through processing. EDI is one of key factors of STP implementation. STP bring a great bunch of benefits: increases efficiency for all market processes, decreases operating risks, enhances business scalability, adds numbers of operations simultaneously with lower data processing rates and operating costs.
The combination of factors mentioned above provides compliance with ethical standards, improvements in technologies and legislation. NDC and PARTAD regard these tasks and principles as challenges for both Russian and other countries financial markets. The parties undertake to provide agreeable terms for cooperation aimed at the achievement of positive results, improvement of EDI and regulations on the Russian market.
Development of professional standards has been a core area of PARTAD activities for almost 15 years, says Viktor Pleskachevsky, chairman, the Board of Directors, PARTAD. PARTADs efforts in the field of electronic document format development became more important after approval of new versions of the Law About Investment Funds and the Law About Non-State Pension Funds.
“A mutual understanding with NDC as a settlement depository able to be one of the most important gateways providing for the conversion of national standards into the international ones and vice versa allows PARTAD and NDC to focus on the unification of electronic messaging on the basis of ISO. PARTAD and NDC will be preparing necessary changes to the current regulatory system. PARTAD is also planning to interact with other centers of EDI unification.
NDC and PARTAD play a leading role in the development of Russian EDI standards. Currently and in the future, the financial infrastructure can not allow itself to have multiple technological standards, says Nikolay Egorov, director, NDC.
Consolidation, integration and unification are not just words; they are supported by technical solutions, organizational principles and first of all by standards. It was very important to agree on unified principles and ISO priority, in other words, on the adaptation of international standards to Russian legislation, the Cyrillic alphabet and other special issues.
L.D.