The XXV International Financial Congress took place in St. Petersburg, Russia, under the keynote theme ‘The Future of Financial Markets’.
The Congress programme featured more than 20 roundtables and five plenary sessions dedicated to development of the economy and finance, monetary policy, banking, payments and financial markets.
This year, the Congress took place in a different format and discussed matters going beyond the strictly banking sector to cover the entire financial industry. Representatives of Russian and international banks, insurance companies, pension funds and other financial market players, as well as central banks and international financial institutions, discussed the most important issues in the area of finance. Representatives of the Bank of Russia at the level of First Deputy Governor and Deputy Governor took part in every discussion of the business programme.
St. Petersburg Governor Georgy Poltavchenko and Central Bank of Russia Governor Elvira Nabiullina signed a Memorandum of Cooperation between the Government of St. Petersburg and the Central Bank of the Russian Federation on establishment and promotion of a new payment tool, the ‘St. Petersburg All-in-One Card’ based on the Mir national payment system.
Participants
With more than 1,000 participants from 34 countries (Argentina, Armenia, Austria, Belarus, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Chile, China, Croatia, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Iceland, India, Iran, Israel, Italy, Japan, Kazakhstan, Laos, Malaysia, Mexico, Moldova, Montenegro, Netherlands, North Korea, Russia, Switzerland, the UK, the United States, and Vietnam), including 349 CEOs, this year’s Congress brought together all financial industry segments.
IFC-2016 participants included:
Alfred Hannig, Executive Director, Alliance for Financial Inclusion; Iikka Korhonen, Head, Bank of Finland’s Institute for Economies in Transition; Karnit Flug, Governor, Bank of Israel; Guillermo Ortiz, Chairman, BTG Pactual Casa de Bolsa; Senad Softic, President of the Governing Board, Governor, Central Bank of Bosnia and Herzegovina; Mar Gudmundsson, Governor, Central Bank of Iceland; Boris Vujcic, Governor, Croatian National Bank; Sven Redel, Representative in the Russian Federation, Deutsche Bundesbank; Adam Farkas, Executive Director, European Banking Authority; David Lewis, Executive Secretary, Financial Action Task Force; Boris Ivanov, Managing Director, GPB Global Resources BV; Giuseppe Boccuzzi, General Director, Interbank Deposit Protection Fund; Jacob Frenkel, Chairman, JPMorgan Chase International; Sergiu Cioclea, Governor, National Bank of Moldova; Marina Rudneva, General Director, O1 Group; Marc Uzan, Executive Director, Reinventing Bretton Woods Committee; Nouriel Roubini, Chairman of the Board of Directors, Co-Founder, Roubini Global Economics LLC; Ambrogio Rinaldi, Director, Supervisory Commission of Italian Pension Funds; Matthieu de Heering, Head of Russia, CIS and Mongolia of Moscow Representative Office, SWIFT Scrl; Ram Sewak Sharma, Chairman, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India; Roman Tikhonenko, President, AIG Insurance Company CJSC; Evelyn Hunter-Jordan, Executive Director, Retail Banking Academy; Aleksey Skorodumov, Chairman of the Management Board, Derzhava PJSCB; Tatyana Adamenko, President, Chairman of the Management Board, Teksbank ZAO; Vladimir Afanasyev, Chairman of the Board of Directors, Obrazovanie JSCIB JSC; Alexander Mirakov, General Director, Chairman of the Management Board; Obrazovanie JSCIB JSC; Kamran Ulukhanov, Chairman of the Board of Directors, Alma Bank JSC; Mirlan Tashmetov, President, Alma Bank JSC; Sergey Vyazmin, Owner, Alpari-Broker LLC; Andrey Tsaruk, Managing Partner, Althaus Consulting; Irina Krivosheeva, Chairman of the Management Board, General Director, Alfa-Capital AM LLC; Alexey Slyusar, General Director, AlfaStrakhovanie-Life LLC; Ekaterina Trofimova, General Director, Analytical Credit Rating Agency JSC; Vladimir Dzhikovich, President, Association of Banks of the North-West; Sergey Belyakov, Chairman of the Council, Private Pension Funds Association; Roman Goryunov, President, Association NP RTS; Maksim Khanzhin, President, Association for Autoinsurer Rights Protection; Alexander Murychev, Chairman of the Board, Association of Regional Banks of Russia; Garegin Tosunyan, President, Association of Russian Banks; Alena Dolgova, Chairperson, Russian Association of Economic Clubs; Viktor Dostov, President, Electronic Money Association; Andrey Kostin, President, Chairman of the Management Board, VTB Bank PJSC; Kirill Shpigun, Chairman of the Management Board, Bank Zenit PJSC; Vladislav Guz, Chairman of the Management Board, Bank Saint Petersburg PJSC; Andrey Shulga, Chairman of the Board of Directors, FINAM Bank JSC; Evgeny Dankevich, Chairman of the Management Board, Bank Otkritie Financial Corporation PJSC; Viktor Nikolaev, General Director, Exchange Saint Petersburg JSC; Vladimir Potapov, Chairman of the Board of Directors, CEO, VTB Capital Asset Management; Ralf Lietzke, General Director, Giesecke & Devrient – LOMO CJSC; Anatoly Shvedov, Chairman of the Management Board, Goldman Sachs Bank LLC; Yury Isaev, General Director, State Corporation Deposit Insurance Agency; Sergey Mikhaylov, Chairman of the Board of Directors, Kapital Asset Management Group; Aleksey Bezdenezhnykh, General Director, Ingosstrakh ONDD Credit Insurance LLC; Mikhail Shabanov, Chairman of the Management Board, General Director, KIT Finance LLC; Oleg Vyugin, Chairman of the Board of Directors, MDM Bank PJSC; Igor Suvorov, President, Interstate Bank; Anton Siluanov, Minister, Ministry of Finance; Konstantin Volkov, President, National Securities Market Association; Dmitry Olyunin, Chairman of the Management Board, Rosbank PJSC; Anatoly Gavrilenko, President, Russian Exchange Union; Igor Maksimtsev, President, St. Petersburg State Economic University FSBEI HE; Marc Luet, President, Country Officer Russia, Division Head for Central and Eastern Europe, Citibank AO; Anton Ustinov, Chairman of the Management Board, Sogaz JSC; Kirill Varlamov, Director, Internet Initiatives Development Foundation; Arthur Javadyan, Chairman of the Board of Directors, Central Bank of the Republic of Armenia; Elvira Nabiullina, Governor, Central Bank of the Russian Federation; and Mikhail Alekseev, Chairman of the Management Board, UniCredit Bank AO.
Media
The IFC proceedings were covered by:
173 media representatives (169 Russian and four international media outlets) from four countries (besides Russia): the UK, Latvia, Serbia, and the United States.
The IFC venue
For the first time this year, the Congress took place at a new venue – the Presidential Library (3, Senate Square). Located in St Petersburg’s historic centre in the Holiest Synod mansion built in the second quarter of the 19th century, the Presidential Library is a major information, scientific, research, cultural and knowledge centre.
Exhibitions
The International Financial Congress included an exhibition showcasing three companies: Goznak, the National Payment Card System and Rosinkas.
The Goznak booth offered Congress participants coins bearing the trade marks of the St. Petersburg and Moscow Mints for purchase.
The National Payment Card System demonstrated its Mir card and invited participants to take a commemorative photo with cards of their favourite design.
Rosinkas showed a video telling the company’s story and gave participants gifts of a can with shredded paper money worth RUB 500,000 as souvenirs.
Transport
Participants’ transport needs during the event were fully met, as follows:
- 20 Mercedes-Benz Sprinter shuttle minibuses to transfer groups of IFC participants between June 29 and July 2, 2016 inclusive from their hotels to the venue and back.
- VIP guests were driven in business-class cars (27 Mercedes-Benz Е-Class sedans).
Participants were able to book transport on an individual basis.
Accommodation
In 2016, the organizers booked 154 rooms in different categories (77 rooms in 5* hotels and 77 rooms in 4* hotels) to accommodate IFC participants and guests. To ensure comfortable lodging, the practice of contracting with partner hotels was continued, whereby the Belmond Grand Hotel Europe, Four Seasons Hotel Lion Palace St. Petersburg, Astoria, Angleterre, W St. Petersburg, Radisson Royal Hotel, Corinthia St. Petersburg, Petro Palace Hotel, Park Inn by Radisson Pribaltiyskaya, Ambassador, Sonya Radisson Hotel, Courtyard St. Petersburg Center West/Pushkin Hotel and others offered special deals to Congress participants.
Organizers
The Congress is organized by the Central Bank of the Russian Federation.
The event’s operator – the Roscongress Foundation – was established in 2007 as the SPIEF Foundation to organize and host the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum. In view of changes in its brief and geographical coverage since its inception, the SPIEF Foundation was renamed the Roscongress Foundation in December 2015. The Foundation promotes Russia’s economic development and strengthens its image by organizing and hosting congresses and exhibitions in economic and social areas, developing their contents, providing advisory, information and expert support to companies and organizations and performing comprehensive research, analysis and reporting on matters on the Russian and global economic agenda.
Please visit the website www.ibcongress.ru for more information.