Major Russian banks have begun to regain access to online passport verification through the System of Interdepartmental Electronic Interaction (SMEV). The service was unavailable for about five days and is only now gradually being restored.
According to market participants, the largest players have already reconnected to the system, including VTB, Alfa-Bank, PSB, and others. However, some mid-sized and smaller banks still do not have access.
Experts link the restoration to compliance with the Ministry of Internal Affairs' information security requirements. Access is being returned first to those organizations that confirmed their systems' compliance and passed the necessary certification.
The outage seriously complicated banks' operations: without passport verification, it is impossible to fully identify clients. This hit online operations especially hard, including loan issuance.
The SMEV system is used by banks to verify documents against the Ministry of Internal Affairs database, including to make sure that a passport is not listed as stolen or invalid.
According to market participants' estimates, full restoration of access may take several more weeks, approximately until the end of April. Until then, some banks will continue to operate under restrictions.
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