MOSCOW, August 1 Federation Council Speaker Valentina Matviyenko said that she had instructed the chamber's budget committee to consider the possibility of tightening control over the activities of microfinance organizations (MFOs).
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"We agreed, and I instructed the Budget and Financial Markets Committee to once again review the measures to tighten control over their activities (microfinance organizations — ed.), over legality, over such wild cases that appear, and so on," Matviyenko said at a press conference following the spring parliamentary session.
Matviyenko added that Russia may consider the possibility of tightening penalties for illegal activities of MFOs.
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«We will see, perhaps we will even increase these penalties, more serious ones, for the work of such (illegal — ed.) microfinance organizations,» Matviyenko said.
During a meeting of the Council for the Development of the Financial Market under the Federation Council on Tuesday, Chairperson Matviyenko proposed that the Central Bank completely stop the work of microfinance organizations in Russia, noting that it is impossible to see «the terrible tragedies of people who take loans from microfinance organizations, give away apartments, large sums of money.» She proposed to think about whether it is possible to close MFOs. The head of the Bank of Russia, Elvira Nabiullina, in turn, responded that a ban on legal, controlled microfinance organizations would lead to their going into the shadows and would harm people who cannot get a loan from banks.