Universal, electronic, mandatory

Regional authorities were supposed to inform the populace of the issue of universal electronic cards (UEC) by the 1^st of November. Said information concerned those, who had not requested such cards in writing. The cards for them will be issued, and they will be able to refuse those within two months. Whether UEC will be able to actually compete with Visa and MasterCard with such lack of interest, is a question.

The UEC affair has already gone on for several years. It was planned to be used for access to public services. The feature of payment system was soon added to the concept. The tests of the card began in several regions of Russia at once, including Moscow and Saint Petersburg, in 2012. The pilot projects uncovered an entire set of problems. The lack of funds in the regional budgets for the issue of the UEC was the most notable of those. The Government, in order to economize, was forced to discard mass implementation of the cards. The receipt of the UEC became a right rather than an obligation. When Minister of Communication and Mass Media Nikolay Nikoforov was speaking in Kazan in 2013, he said that the project was too costly for the regions. The federal official estimated the spending of Tatarstan only on the issue of UEC at 725 million roubles. According to the Ministry of Economic Development, the total cost of the project for the entire country would reach 135 – 165 billion roubles.

Vladimir Starovoytov, Associate of the Law Firm "YUST", explained that the laws currently do not stipulate, who is to pay for the issue of the cards: “It used to be assumed that the regions will fund the project. That idea was discarded due to the budget deficits. The procedure of compensation and co-funding of the costs of issue, handing-out and servicing of the UEC from the federal budget is also not determined“.