By voting amendments to the legislation on the provision of services earlier this month, the Russian parliament sounded the death knell for the Universal Electronic Card (UEC) project.
A tangible manifestation of Russia’s all-embracing e-government ideas, the UEC was originally intended to incorporate or replace virtually all existing identifying information, from ID cards to student IDs and pension IDs to driving licenses and medical insurance cards. The UECs were also supposed to offer Russians a handy tool for paying taxes, requesting government services, paying transportation fares, and more.
Signed into law in 2010 by then-President Dmitry Medvedev – who dubbed the card a “second or even primary ID card,” – the project was intended to be used by “tens of millions of people” across the country.
A designated organization, the Universal Electronic Card Company (UECC), was contracted to develop the project under the authority of the Ministry for Economic Development. The company was co-owned by three Russian banks: Sberbank (34%), Uralsib (33%), and AkBars (33%).
The electronic cards were to include government, social and commercial services as well as payment, transportation and banking applications. Initially scheduled for completion in 2012, the project was postponed several times with lowered ambitions.
In 2014, Sberbank suggested to use the UEC to build Russia’s new national payment system. However, this system was finally built from scratch by the central bank, which resulted in the introduction of Russia’s national bank card MIR.
In 2015, Sberbank shut down its own payment system, ‘PRO100,’ which was part of the UEC program. The bank’s head German Gref also stopped all the processes related to the UEC project.
According to the UEC website, 778,000 users had applied for the card as of July 2016.
“The card has failed to get traction since the applications which were initially planned were not introduced, except for the banking one. Moreover, the card hasn’t become an electronic identifier, let alone an electronic passport. None of the elements which the card was supposed to include – user signature, photo and insurance number (SNILS) – were actually included” – said an industry expert quoted by Rugrad.eu.
Source: Vedomosti
