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With every passing year, information technologies have an increasingly greater impact on the country's economy and the life of its citizens. In this environment, no industry, including the financial sector, can go without IT solutions.

In the context of current geopolitical challenges (and despite certain economic turbulence), we have made progress in the substitution of imported software.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a law whereby state customers can purchase foreign software only when comparable Russian products are not available.

At the same time, a handful of companies provide most of the end-user, office and infrastructure software products that are currently in use globally. For these niches, dependence on imports is 90% or even more.

We are for the de-monopolisation of the software market. In five to 10 years, we would like to see a situation where one market player cannot corner more than 50% of each infrastructure software line.

Our BRICS partners also share this view.

At the recent BRICS and SCO forums in Ufa, an agreement was reached to set up a working group to coordinate efforts in the ICT sphere, including development of the software market. I think the implementation of new IT solutions and development of the e-Economy together with the support of Russian IT exports will be new drivers of growth in the financial sector in the coming years.

I hope that the Finnopolis 2015 Forum will become a venue to share best practices and modern approaches to complex technological solutions in the economy and effective development of the financial sector.

I hope that the forum's participants and guests find the event productive and have constructive discussions.