Federal Chamber of Notaries, Interfax to integrate access to information about pledges

The Federal Chamber of Notaries (FCN), which operates the Unified Notarial Information System, including a register of notices of pledges of movable property, has signed a strategic partnership agreement with ZAO Interfax, operator of the Unified Federal Register of Legally Significant Factual Data about the Activity of Legal Entities, Individual Entrepreneurs and Other Subjects of Economic Activity (Fedresurs).

The partners will design interfaces for the end-to-end search for information on charges and encumbrances on property in Russia.

The document was signed on May 19 as part of the VII St. Petersburg International Legal Forum.

The register operators agreed to develop common approaches to disclosing information about charges on property.

The purpose of the agreement is to promote improvement of the investment climate and move Russia up in the World Bank‘s Doing Business ranking.

The first step in implementing the agreement is to enable end-to-end search for information about all charges in the registers. It will be possible to verify the status of property and monitor any changes by entering a query on both databases via one of the interfaces - that of the Fedresurs or the FCN.

At the moment, creditors have to use each of the two registers separately order to obtain exhaustive information about property.

The partners plan to carry the initiative out by the end of the year.

Integrating the two systems ought to mitigate credit risks for banks that lend money with property as security and for financial organizations engaged in leasing and factoring.

The decision to integrate the registers was reached on the basis of recommendations by experts of the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) and ought to approve Russia‘s score in the Doing Business rating which, among other things, evaluates the accessibility and transparency of information about credit risks.

"Ever since the register of notifications about pledges of movable property was set up within Unified Notarial Information System of the Federal Chamber of Notaries (FCN), the FCN has made and continues to make every effort to comply with the requirements of the World Bank‘s Doing Business methodology. Entering into the agreement with Interfax is one more step towards enhancing the system for registering injunctive remedies in the Russian Federation," said Konstantin Korsik, President of the Federal Chamber of Notaries.

"In recent years efficient registers of charges have been set up in Russia, which have made it possible to greatly reduce instances of fraud and make loans more accessible for businesses. Now we are taking the next step by creating a transparent information disclosure system, one that meets all international requirements. The search for the necessary information will become quicker and easier, and verifying borrowers will take less time. This is a decision that those concerned with pledges on movable property have been waiting for a long time," said Sergei Yakovlev, Deputy General Director of Interfax.

"Insofar as this is possible, the two Russian registers have to be integrated, and their integration is a step in the right direction," said Spyridon Bazinas, representing UNCITRAL.

Russian legislation requires that notices of pledge of movable property are registered in the notarial system. At the same time, Fedresurs publishes notices of the conclusion of leasing agreements, with a description of the leased asset; and of the conclusion of factoring and concession agreements.

Thousands of notifications are published in the two systems each month.

The Federal Chamber of Notaries (FCN) is a nonprofit organization bringing together 84 chambers of notaries in constituent members of the Russian Federation. It operates the Register of notices of pledge over movable property (www.reestr-zalogov.ru), set up in accordance with Russian legislation, which has been kept and developed for more than three years. The register currently contains more than 3.5 million notices.

Fedresurs (fedresurs.ru) is the main online outlet for the disclosure of legally important information about Russian commercial organizations, a publicly accessible resource for the analysis of counterparties, charges and encumbrances, and monitoring of bankruptcies. More than 100,000 notifications of leasing contracts have been published in Fedresurs since September 2016. ZAO Interfax is the operator of Fedresurs.

UNCITRAL (uncitral.org) is the core legal body of the United Nations system in the field of international trade law.