As many as 14 banks have already joined the system, and 114 more have applied. Our estimates suggest that early next year, 250 banks will have joined the system. At the later stages, only small banks with a basic licence, which need more time to introduce changes, will join. According to our estimates, the introduction of the Faster Payments System will reduce fees for retail remittances more than 2-3-fold. We are currently working to further develop the system and ensure payments for goods and services via the Faster Payments System. Firstly, this will support the trend toward the rise in cashless payments, given that FPS fares for trade and service companies will be lower than those for merchant acquiring services. You may remember that this topic is currently very acute. Last year, we also introduced remote biometric identification for financial services provision. Biometrics is currently collected in branches of 146 banks; by the end of the year, these will be collected in all banks with a universal licence in accordance with regulatory documents. In the near future, biometrics will also be collected in multifunctional centres and used to provide not only financial services, but also other public services in digital format. Given these factors, we expect that the use of biometrics will expand considerably next year. Last year, we launched Masterchain, a blockchain-based project elaborated in association with FinTech Association and market participants; this is an advanced transaction record system. Together with Rosreestr, we have already implemented a masterchain-enabled electronic mortgage project.

This development has caused some analysts to talk about “the missing deflation”.5 The so-called Phillips curve, which shows the relationship between the rate of inflation and economic activity, appears to have flattened compared with before.6 One possible explanation for this development is that the monetary policy conducted in recent decades around the world – where independent central banks have primarily focussed on attaining low and stable inflation – has gradually succeeded in anchoring inflation and inflation expectations. This has meant that the Phillips curve has stabilised in a situation with low average inflation. It is not entirely clear why this would also have contributed to reducing the slope of the Phillips curve, but we cannot rule out the possibility that if expectations are anchored better, price-setting and wage formation will be less sensitive to changes in economic activity. So, even if a monetary policy aimed at keeping inflation low and stable was perhaps not the main explanation for the Great Moderation, it is possible that it made an enduring impression in the form of a flatter Phillips curve. We cannot know whether this phenomenon is temporary or permanent. But if it is the case that we have had a fundamental change in the way the economy functions, it is also possible that this should lead to the central bank adapting, at least to some extent, the policy it conducts. A flatter Phillips curve implies that inflation has become less sensitive to the domestic demand situation – that it varies less with cyclical phases.