On February 3, speaking at a briefing at Tatarstan Cabinet of Ministers, Tatarstan Minister of Information and Communication Roman Shaikhutdinov said that a zero commission for paying housing and utilities bills via Tatarstan’s state services website and Tatarstan Services mobile application was set in Tatarstan on February 1.

He said the work to reduce the size of commission that Tatarstan state services portal users were charged was done at the instruction of Tatarstan President Rustam Minnikhanov. The previous flat сommission rate of 10 per cent was cancelled on December 1. A zero rate was introduced for all holders of Ak Bars Bank cards starting from 1 February.

The Minister reported that 20 per cent of all payments were made using Ak Bars Bank cards and 40 percent with Sberbank cards, while the remaining 40 per cent were distributed between other banks.

The list of management companies allowing zero-commission housing and utilities payments has been published on the Tatarstan state services portal. As of now, agreements on 600,000 of 1,270,000 business accounts have been concluded.

“Therefore, half of the business accounts in the republic can pay for housing and utilities services without commission,” The minister commented.