Alternative Financial Infrastructures in Russia

Abstract

Russia’s policies responding to the pressure of sanctions on financial infrastructures provide a prime example for the development for the creation of alternatives to the Western dominated financial systems. From a perspective of infrastructural power, the paper discusses the issue in relation to an expansion of the state’s economic role. Focussing mainly on the payment card system “Mir” and the digital rubel, it traces the development of cashless payment in post-soviet Russia from an early phase of dominating Western companies to a strongly increased involvement of the Bank of Russia in the payment market. It also shows how payment via state-owned infrastructures serves as a vehicle for further infrastructural projects entailing an extension of state power. With regard to the controversies between the regulator and the banking industry over the state-owned payment infrastructures, it is shown how the verticalization of the political system in Russia affects the positioning of the Bank of Russia, and also its relationship to the large state-owned enterprises in the financial sector.