We are working together with law enforcement agencies and are now focusing on public awareness. About a month ago, we launched a joint project with Yandex – the microfinance organisations on our register are marked with a special symbol in the search results so that it is easier to understand whether a given microfinance institution is legal or not. Moreover, this year saw Mir cards issued on a large scale. In Russia, they are accepted by all payment terminals and ATMs. The issue is proceeding at a good pace: over 10.6 million cards have already been issued. In the last month and a half alone, over 2 million cards were issued. Mir is a competitive system and offers all the services on the domestic market that the public are used to after using international payment systems. Our strategic objective in the coming years is ensuring Mir cards are accepted internationally, firstly within the Eurasian Economic Union. We are making progress in this area with our partners in the Eurasian Economic Union. Last week, the first cross-border transactions using Mir cards were carried out with Armenia’s ArCa payment system. This is the first project we have undertaken to organise equal intersystem interaction. (I believe the citizens of the two countries will benefit from new financial opportunities. I would like to express my gratitude to the Central Bank of Armenia and the management team of the ArCa payment system for their incredibly effective collaboration and promotion of this project).
If however action were needed on financial stability, this would be effected chiefly through temporary liquidity instruments, which would not conflict with the increase in interest rates needed to ensure price stability. II. A plea for more focused multilateral cooperation Be they energy price pressures or financial spill-overs, the challenges currently faced by central banks require more than individual actions – they call for strong and effective multilateral impetus. I say it here in Washington, during the IMF Spring Meetings. However, the tide has been turning the other way since the Russian invasion of Ukraine. As geopolitical rifts deepen and trust fades, it is becoming more and more difficult for the G20 to deliver on its mandate, despite remarkable efforts from the Indonesian and now the Indian presidency. We need to find pragmatic ways forward to overcome deadlocks in global action and adapt to the new realities. Alternatives to multilateral cooperation, such as regionalism, “minilateralism”, ii or “polylateralism” iii can usefully supplement it. Working on smaller scales, or relying on non-state actors could help achieve breakthroughs. Yet they cannot replace it. They lack the global reach of international state cooperation.iv Hence my call for a focused or pragmatic multilateralism. v The principle is simple: rather than pursuing an exaggerated ambition, focus at present multilateral efforts on a few selected global issues, where there are clear common interests.