"We are gradually approaching the point where it would make sense for the commissioner to tackle, among other things, the property claims of retail investors against professional participants in the financial market," Mamuta said.

At the same time, he noted that a retail investor is not a consumer as defined by the consumer protection law. "No one argues with this. We are not saying that it is necessary to equate investors with consumers," he clarifies. At the same time, he drew attention to the fact that Russia has approximately 17 million retail investors, and due to recent events, many of them have faced "serious difficulties."

"We, as the Central Bank, are now looking for ways to resolve these difficulties, but one of the options could be a solution of this kind, which would allow using a specialized institution to quickly, effectively resolve these disputes. Of course, it requires discussion", Mamuta stressed.

Mamuta also stated that the financial ombudsman could himself decide to lower the amount of the penalty paid by financial organizations. “Of course, when almost half of the decisions are challenged by financial institutions because of this, not because they disagree with them in principle, but because they do not agree with the amount of the penalty and are forced to go to court, this is in some way a senseless double burden on the judiciary", he noted.

The commissioner could well make such decisions on his own, he has more than enough competence to estimate penalty in a particular case, especially if it is a question of reduction, and not an arbitrary increase. "I think that both the insurance community and the banking community would also support this," the Central Bank representative emphasized.

Speaking about non-state pension funds (NPFs), Mamuta noted that the regulator supports simplifying the dispute settlement procedure related to illegal transfers to NPFs. “Now the situation is a little better. A few years ago we had mass complaints about illegal transfers. We solved them as a supervisor, but they could not be resolved by civil law, because the transfer had already been completed. It was necessary either to go to court, there are such precedents, and to prove that there was some substitution of will or that this will was illegally expressed, as it were, or by the wrong person - a rather complicated procedure.The possibility of simplifying it, of course, is in the interests of the insured person, and in the interests of the industry too. We would uphold this concept," he said.

Financial markets megaregulator