The Central Bank encourages banks to deploy a new technology
Loans issued using the Unified Biometric System will require banks to create smaller reserves, the Central Bank said. By this, the regulator is trying to encourage banks to more actively collect samples of face images and voice imprints of citizens. Banks welcome the opportunity to reduce pressure on capital, but they are not ready to lower the rate on loans for their customers in many cases.
Last Friday, the First Deputy Chairman of the Central Bank Olga Skorobogatova, speaking at the International Financial Congress, said that it is planned to reduce the loan provisioning rates that banks issue based on biometric data. “Since the security requirements in the law are strict and we really understand how this system works in terms of security, we believe that loans issued based on biometric data can be provisioned at a lower rate,” she explained.
Encouraging banks to collect biometric customer data in the form of samples is significantly high. The system was launched a year ago, and currently 156 banks are collecting data in more than 5.3 thousand branches. However, according to the Central Bank, banks have collected only 20 thousand samples so far. Without filling in the Unified Biometric System (UBS), remote services cannot be fully launched. However, the collection of biometric data induces extra costs for banks (from 4 million rubles for connecting one branch to the system, plus a minimum of 130 thousand rubles for each additional branch; Kommersant, January 9). In addition, new requirements are being imposed on the collection and processing of biometric data (Kommersant, May 31), which induce even more costs for banks. To this must be added the time spent on taking biometrics directly from customers. Meanwhile, the data is collected into a single database, which can be used by any bank. Therefore, if you do not rush to collect data, then once the UBS is filled, you can use it with minimal cost.
Maksim Builov, Veronika Goryacheva
Published July 8, 2019 года in the Kommersant newspaper №117
