Russian banks asked to postpone fines for non-service on biometrics

MOSCOW, August 30 – PRIME. The Association of Banks of Russia sent a letter to the Central Bank with a request to postpone for a year the imposition of fines on market participants for the inability to open deposits and take loans using biometric identification in mobile applications – RIA Novosti has read a copy of the letter.

“To refrain from taking measures … for violation by banks of the requirements to ensure that individual clients can open accounts (deposits) in rubles, as well as receive loans in rubles without personal presence after identifying a client – an individual using the Unified Identification and Authentication System – ed.) and EBS (Unified Biometric System – ed.) through the bank’s official website on the Internet, as well as the bank’s mobile application … until 09/01/2023,” the letter says.

In addition, the association asks to remove the mandatory requirement to implement remote identification for the iOS operating system due to the restrictions of the App Store, at least for banks under international sanctions.

Banks explain this need both by the technological complexity of the necessary work and by their high cost. They also draw attention to the fact that the level of public awareness and the demand for banking services using biometrics are still at an extremely low level.

Also, as stated in the letter, today there is a very low filling of the EBS with information about citizens, which does not allow it to be fully used for remote identification and the provision of relevant services by banks and other financial organizations.