Register of payment agents

A register of payment agents usually means the registration of companies that operate under Federal Law No. 103-FZ. This law governs accepting payments from individuals: for telecoms, utilities, and in favor of suppliers through cash desks and terminals. Such agents are subject to anti-money laundering rules and register with the Federal Financial Monitoring Service (Rosfinmonitoring).

What this has to do with foreign trade payments

An agent that pays a foreign supplier on behalf of a Russian company usually works differently. It accepts money not from individuals but from companies, under an agency agreement governed by Chapter 52 of the Russian Civil Code. As a rule, such work does not fall under Federal Law No. 103-FZ. There is no separate state register of agents for foreign trade payments. So the phrase “we are on the register” says nothing by itself about how reliable the agent is for your payment.

How to check an agent

• Company registration and history: how many years it has been operating, who the owners are, whether there are bankruptcy or liquidation proceedings.
• If the agent is foreign: its registration in its own country and whose account the payment will be sent from.
• Sanctions and restricted-party lists: the agent should not be on them.
• The agreement: who is responsible for the deadline, what happens to the money before execution, how the agent reports.
• Documents at the end: payment confirmation from the bank, the agent’s report and completion certificate.

What to watch for

The main risk is not a missing register entry, but that the money is already with the agent while the payment has not been executed. This is solved by how the deal is structured, not by a certificate.

Agents in the VEDmost pool are checked before any payment reaches them. We select one of them for your payment, and on request the roubles wait for execution in a special escrow account at a Russian bank, for an additional fee. More in the entry on the risks of working with agents and on the Payment protection page.