On the Improvement of the Financial and Legal Liability of Payment System Operators

The article discusses possible ways to improve the application of liability measures provided for by the legislation of the Russian Federation on the national payment system to payment system operators. The criteria provided for in Article 34 of the Federal Law “On the National Payment System” and used by the Bank of Russia to select a measure of coercion for violation of this law are presented by quantitative and qualitative characteristics. Quantitative characteristics are aimed at assessing the impact of a violation on the smooth functioning of the payment system and, according to the Regulation of the Bank of Russia No. 607-P, are measurable (for example, the time to eliminate an information security incident is calculated in minutes). In turn, the qualitative characteristics describe the violation as “affect/ does not affect the services provided to the participants of the payment system and their customers” (parts 1, 2 of Article 34 of the Federal Law “On the National Payment System”). The qualitative characteristics of violations committed by the payment system operator are not entirely specific. Considering that the responsibility of payment system operators is a type of financial legal responsibility, the signs of which are legality, objectivity and fairness, the article proposes an approach to clarifying the qualitative characteristics of violations committed by payment system operators in order to increase the effectiveness of applying liability measures to them.