"Dmitry Anatolyevich gave orders to analyze several scenarios, including preservation of FFMS as it is, with added powers”, Head of the Ministry for Economic Development Andrey Belousov told the press after the meeting on the International Financial Center in Russia, chaired by Medvedev.

He stressed that the Prime Minister’s order will be carried out. "He gave us a one-month deadline", said Belousov, adding that there is no preferred variant as of today.

FFMS Head Dmitry Pankin said all three previously published scenarios are considered on equal basis.

"Number one is keeping everything as it is and giving more power to FFMS, number two is closer integration with the Central Bank without any special status legally assigned to the new agency or service, number three is assigning a special status to the new Bank of Russia-based service in the Securities Act", he said.

Pankin reiterated that FFMS considers it possible to integrate regulation within the Central Bank, if the service remains a separate body.

"This is a good idea, it solves the problem, but the regulator must be an independent authority in the Central Bank”, he said.

According to Head of MIFC Taskforce Alexander Voloshin, all variants that unify regulation within the Central Bank are worthy of discussion.

"We have to choose between these. Two scenarios – a new division completely diluted in the Central Bank system, or an independent one”, he said.

"Everybody realizes that there are two options for the unified regulator – it can be either FFMS-based or CB-based. However, we have been trying to achieve certain progress with FFMS for the last 20 years, but to little avail”, said Voloshin.

At the same time, the Central Bank has more powers and it is more competitive in the human resources market. Besides, said Voloshin, the CB will have to integrate “quite a few functions, including prudential oversight, for instance".

Voloshin also noted that no conflict of interest between the Central Bank and FFMS will arise, should they be unified, the only point is whether the unification of mandates is realistic.

"FFMS has a separate mandate – financial industry development, regulation, investor rights protection, while the Central Bank mandate is monetary policy. How compatible are they? There is no conflict as such, but which mandate will prevail and which will become secondary? Is it a positive or a negative, is it viable?”, he said.

According to Alexander Voloshin, if the final decision on the megaregulator is taken within two months, the unification in 2013 “appears possible”.

Project Group №1, Dmitry Pankin, Alexander Voloshin