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On March 24, 2010 Deputy Director of Department of Audit and Consulting Services to Financial Institutions, Roman Kenigsberg spoke at on-line conference How many currency exchange offices will be left in Russia?, during this conference Roman Kenigsberg answered questions of readers of Lenta.ru. According to requirement of the Central Bank by October 1, 2010 all currency exchange outlets should be either transformed into supplementary offices of banks or should be shut down. What are the new requirements towards currency exchange offices are needed for? How will the market get changed? Will commissions for exchange of currency increase? Roman Kenigsberg answered this and other questions of readers during the conference.

So, Roman Kenigsberg stated that officially the Central Bank has not reasoned necessity to ban currency exchange offices. At the same time, according to the expert, in press representatives of the Central Bank are discussing necessity to increase control over activities of banks. “Unfortunately, there are cases when currency exchange offices work for several years without booking their transactions in bank’s reporting. There is also problem of fraudulent actions associated with such exchange offices, including actions with use of fake notes”, Roman Kenigsberg clarified. According to him, to fight such events permanent control over operation of currency exchange offices is required, test purchasing, system of answering claims of clients. “The most radical method is to ban currency exchange offices. At the same time it is not guaranteed that tomorrow on the sites of “shadow” currency exchange offices there will not appear “shadow” supplementary offices or lending and cash services offices. The issue regarding efficiency of control over subdivisions of banks still remains”, the expert noted.

As for increasing commission for exchange of currency, as Roman Kenigsberg reminded, when designating cost of banking services, market mechanisms operate. “As offer of services decreases on the market of services, the margin on currency and exchange transactions (or commission for transaction) can potentially increase, however, I would not dramatize the situation”, the expert noted. According to him, for banks it is important to earn from turnovers from exchange of foreign currency and not to compete in terms of expensiveness of its price-lists.