Maria Krasnova has been appointed by Russias Depository Clearing Company (DCC) to oversee the integration of DCC with NSD and Settlement Chamber RTS. Meanwhile, NSD shareholders approved a strategy to reduce tariffs and release products and services around corporate actions, settlement on DVP, collateral management and securities lending.
Shareholders of Russias Depository Clearing Company (DCC) on April 5 elected Maria Krasnova, deputy chairman of the executive board of the National Settlement Depository (NSD), as the company’s new CEO. Her official charge will be overseeing the integration of DCC with NSD and Settlement Chamber RTS, a task she has been overseeing since September.
Late last year, the Kremlin approved a measure to create a central securities depository in the country as part of its push to develop Moscow into an international financial center. The lack of CSD in Russia has long been seen as a barrier to entry into the market for foreign investors, particularly U.S. institutional investors, which are required to safekeep their securities held outside the country in CSDs.
As such, the two key Russian exchanges, MICEX and RTS, along with the two existing depositories, NSD and DCC, were set to be combined. The foreign nominee concept is also being introduced, while CSDs outside the countryincluding ICSDs such as Euroclear and Clearstreamwill be allowed to connect directly to NSD when it meets all the requirements to become a CSD, expected soon.
Krasnova has been a member of the executive board of the National Depository Center (NDC), the predecessor to NSD, since 2009, first as head of the Legal Department and then deputy chairman of the board. Before that, she was the chief of the Legal Department since 2001, when she joined NDC. She is a graduate of the Lomonosov Moscow State University with a specialty in law.
Earlier this month NSDs supervisory board approved the sale and purchase agreement by NSD and MICEX-RTS of DCCs shares.
“NSD’s mid-term development strategy approved by the Supervisory Board is our corporate frame of reference, explains Eddie Astanin, chairman of the Executive Board at NSD. It is crucially important that the members of the Supervisory Board representing interests of the market participants and their clients had taken part in the strategy development. This means that the strategy meets the shareholders’ and market participants’ needs. The approved balanced system of the indicators of the strategy’s implementation motivates NSD’s management and personnel to contribute to achievement of our strategic goals and accomplishment of our tasks.”
NSD has also just set a strategy for the next three years. By 2015, it plans to increase the value of assets on deposit by at least RUB30 trillion and reduce tariffs gradually as deposits increase. NSD does not strive to maximize its profit at any cost, the firm said in a statement. Its main task is to maintain a balance between financing the company’s accelerated technological development and retaining an acceptable amount of the clients’ expenses for the company’s services at the allowable level of risk. NSD says its target financial benchmark is a return on equity (ROE) of 15%.
NSD also plans to expand its product range, including corporate actions processing and multi-currency settlements on DVP using SWIFT messaging. It also plans to launch services related to collateral management and develop securities lending technology.
Christopher Gohlke