course, it is important that this industry, which is important to the economy ’ s development, is sustainable, transparent and adequately regulated. the series of drafted laws has passed the first reading in the state duma, and now there is serious work to be done in preparing them for the second reading. the most important of these is the introduction of a unified system for evaluating business reputation, management qualification requirements and requirements for the founders and owners of non - bank financial institutions. such requirements are already defined in the banking system, and it ’ s very important to increase the responsibility of the owners and management of financial organisations for their sustainability and good governance, and in our opinion it is very important to bring in similar norms for non - banking organisations too. another draft law currently in the duma, and now particularly important, aims to improve the effectivity of regulation in the fight with insider trading and market manipulation. at the moment our legislation lags behind global practices. we understand what an urgent topic this is, and in order to make our economy more attractive to investors there should of course be effective mechanisms in place to counter insider trading and market manipulation. the next important issue is the bill concerning a financial ombudsman for the rights of consumers of financial services. recently at the state council presidium there was discussion about rights protection for consumers of financial services, and, of course, a financial ombudsman could be one of the instruments used to increase the effectivity of consumers ’ rights protection. we propose to bring this in gradually. and here, too, i hope i can count on support for this project from the ministry of finance and the government and state duma as a whole. these bills are in the process of being finalised before submission to the state duma. firstly, for us it is important that a bill toughens liability for false statements in the financial sector. we are carrying out major work on improving the cyber resilience of financial organisations and combatting cyber attacks. so it is important for us, taking into account the benefits of digital technology development for the financial sphere, to provide an adequate level of security and protection from risks. therefore it is necessary to amend the law in order to establish legal requirements for the protection of financial organisations ’ information and to combat theft of their clients ’ funds. we are now working on drafting this bill, too. and also worthy of note is our work, together with the ministry of finance, on the initiative for the pension savings

elvira nabiullina : review of recent inflation developments in russia and economic outlook statement by ms elvira nabiullina, governor of the bank of russia, in the follow - up to the board of directors meeting, moscow, 6 september 2019. * * * today, the board of directors has decided to reduce the key rate to 7 % p. a. if economic conditions are in line with our forecast, we will look into further key rate reduction at one of the upcoming meetings. let me dwell on the main factors behind the decision. first. annual inflation has already approached 4 %. our estimates suggest that as of the year - end it will fall within the range of 4. 0 - 4. 5 %. meanwhile, inflation is forecast to stand at 3. 5 - 4. 0 % in the opening months of next year. this is largely associated with the fact that the vat rate increase will be factored out from the calculation of annual inflation. this may be considered as a purely technical factor. sustainable trends point to inflation of about 4 %. second. inflation expectations of households and businesses remain elevated. therefore, we stay focused on their dynamics. right now, i will not highlight the figures we released last week. however, i would like to note that previously we abstained from posting the results of surveys on household inflation expectations during ‘ the week of silence ’. we have discussed this issue and from now on we will publish these data as soon as they are released. it is essential that the market promptly receives the information which the board of directors consults when making its decision. the bank of russia will continue to publish its analytical commentary that summarises and estimates expectations of households, businesses and analysts, after ‘ the week of silence ’. third. monetary conditions are continuing to loosen. we expect that both previous and today ’ s key rate decisions will underpin this trend. market expectations for interest rates shifted downwards on the back of the signals in the followup to the board meetings in june and july. this was also driven by the shifting expectations for monetary policies of the us fed and the ecb as the economic growth outlook for the us and euro area deteriorated. the decline in interest rates comes with an easing of non - price lending conditions in terms of maturities and volumes. the easing of both price and non - price monetary conditions contributes to expansion in lending. according to our estimates, corporate lending will rise by 7 - 10 % while retail lending will increase