Participants of Russia’s financial market requested the Bank of Russia (Central Bank) to test the use of video calls to remotely open accounts for new clients.

Kommersant reports that in this way the bankers want to compensate for the lack of a sufficient number of casts in the Unified Biometric System (UBS). It is assumed that accounts opened in this way can be used to conduct a limited set of operations with limits on amounts.

In particular, the National Council of the Financial Market (NCFM) sent a letter to the Bank of Russia, proposing “piloting and subsequent normative regulation of remote client identification technology in a video conference mode.”

It is about clients who want to receive services from a particular bank for the first time. Currently, this can only be done through personal communication with bank employees (both in the office and by visiting the client) or through the Unified Biometric System (UBS). In the first case, communication is not always geographically accessible. Biometric identification, which was introduced in 2018, has not been widely used due to the small number of sample casts, the letter says.

It is noted that financial organizations see great potential for the videoconferencing regime to significantly increase their accessibility for citizens, especially those with disabilities.

During the videoconference the client is expected to present his/her passport and insurance number of an individual personal account (SNILS), as during a personal visit to the office. The video will be examined for the use of programs that distort the transmitted image, such as Deepfake.

Experts say this technology works successfully in a number of countries, but the cost of implementation could be hundreds of millions of rubles.

Digital Consulting Solutions noted that large banks have a team dealing with the recognition of dipface and even the authenticity of documents by video, but the combination of technology, refinement and certification of the product may require some investment and time.

It is about 90-130 million rubles and three months of work, subject to the availability of individual software modules. However, if recognition of document authenticity by the software is required, the cost of the upgrade may reach more than one hundred million rubles, and the period of work may increase up to six months.

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