On its part, the Government introduced tax and rental concessions and subsidised loan programmes. The Bank of Russia took measures through the financial system to reduce people’s costs for covering their daily financial needs. 1/5  BIS central bankers' speeches  The earliest decisions made at the very beginning of the pandemic were related to loan restructuring. Both households and companies affected by the pandemic were granted loan repayment holidays. We really appreciate how quickly you approved respective laws for this. Having the capital cushion, the banking system was to act in the most responsible manner during this period. Therefore, banks also offered loan restructuring to clients who were not eligible pursuant to law. Eventually, 12% of all restructured loans to both individuals and small and medium-sized businesses were restructured according to law, and the remaining portion — under banks’ inhouse programmes. Currently, we have no concerns about the termination of loan repayment holidays. The majority of borrowers have managed to resume their scheduled repayments. Potentially bad loans are covered by banks’ capital cushions. What does this mean? This means that they do not pose any threat to banks’ stability or capabilities to expand lending, which is vital at the moment. Moreover, we granted temporary regulatory easing to banks to be able not only to restructure loans, but also to issue new ones, thus helping the economy. We allowed banks to use their accumulated capital cushions, which enabled them to issue more corporate and mortgage loans. We shifted towards accommodative monetary policy.
But unfortunately, market players failed to act in a responsible manner in this situation. They made offers to individuals to invest funds in complex, or opaque products, and people could thus lose not only income, but also a part of their investment. Of course, this was the last thing people needed during the pandemic. We are grateful to you for empowering the Bank of Russia to limit the sales of hazardous products to individuals. Furthermore, we will establish requirements for product selling procedures so that financial institutions cannot mislead retail investors. To this end, we are introducing key information documents on all products which will provide a clear and brief description of a product’s main parameters and inherent risks. We also need an open-ended cooling-off period for people, even if they have faced hard selling when some products were offered or promoted, will have the opportunity to reject any services. At the moment, such a period is applied solely to voluntary insurance. I would like to stress that we will continue our efforts to tighten the screws in this area, so to say, until we see that the market behaves more maturely, understanding that it is more beneficial for it to establish long-term relations with customers, rather than swindle money from them right there and then.