We are placing an increased focus on lending to small businesses, and simplifying regulatory requirements for banks as regards SME lending. They include the scope for securitisation, reduced risk ratios for ‘good’ loans to small businesses, and banks’ possibilities to assess small business customers based on a wide range of data, relieving them of the necessity of preparing complex document packages. We also introduced insurance of small businesses’ accounts with banks, and I thank the deputies for adopting this law. This is another factor of small business development. Last year, we launched proportionate regulation in the banking sector. Currently, 142 banks hold 2/7  BIS central bankers' speeches  basic licences. The priority of these banks is lending to small and medium-sized enterprises. We discuss challenges faced by these banks on both bank associations’ platforms and the Bank of Russia’s platform, and we are ready to fine-tune our regulation to create the best environment for SME operations. Moving on to mortgage lending. This is the most socially important type of lending. Last year, mortgage lending expanded at a high pace with interest rates falling throughout most of the year. Currently, banks are resuming rate cuts after a short period of their upward revision – we registered growth to 10.4% after an all-time low of 9.4%. Mortgages are long-term loans, and interest rates depend on inflation and inflation expectations. Our monetary policy is therefore aimed at keeping inflation sustainably low in the long run.
Therefore, we ask you to authorise the Central Bank to promptly block websites advertising illegal financial operations, among other things. We have already forwarded the respective bill to the State Duma and look forward to your support. In order to reduce the chances of the public getting trapped by illegal lenders, since last year, we have been working together with Yandex on a joint project aimed at labelling websites of legal trustworthy microfinance organisations registered with the Central Bank with special symbols. We are discussing similar projects with other search engines. Development of the Mir card Currently, as many as 59 million cards have been issued; the share of the Mir card has been growing both in issue volumes and cashless operations. Countrywide, people use cards on a daily basis; in more than half of Russian regions, transport cards, and in some regions, also 4/7  BIS central bankers' speeches  social cards are attached to the Mir card. We hope this trend will continue. Mir cards are accepted in member states of the Eurasian Economic Union and Turkey (last year we told you we were conducting negotiations). In the near future, we are planning to ensure that these cards are accepted in non-CIS countries popular with Russian tourists, and to expand their acceptance in CIS countries. The development of cashless payments is not restricted to the use of Mir cards. Last year, we completed the development of the Bank of Russia’s special project, Faster Payments System (FPS), which we launched early this year.