The Bank of Russia signaled on Friday it could deny registration to new currency exchange offices in 2010 and said it would give operating offices up to six months to reregister as providers of wider services.
"We are considering a regulation canceling the registration of new exchange offices,... it could be adopted later this year," board member Mikhail Sukhov, who heads the Central Bank's department for licensing credit organizations, said.
The banker said the idea behind the "pro-transparency" move was to make such offices provide other services than just currency exchange.
Sukhov explained consumers could apply for exchange services at regular bank offices, while the Central Bank could better control currency conversion in banks if exchange offices were banned.
Last year, the Federal Antimonopoly Service pointed to discrepancies between exchange rates inside most offices in Moscow and those posted on their boards.
An Interior Ministry official said most exchange offices in Moscow were involved in fraud, while the police are not authorized to check banks that own questionable exchange offices without a request from the Central Bank.
"Currency exchange is one of the most popular services, and exchange offices offer better rates than banks. So the key question is whether banks will be able to provide quality [exchange] services without lowering exchange rates," the prime minister's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, told Vedomosti business daily.
MOSCOW, February 5 (RIA Novosti)
