Big Four telcos to block Sber and Alfa calls starting Oct 15
In a peak display of corporate bickering, Russia's major telcos are finally growing a spine—or at least a mute button. They have threatened to sever connections for the country's biggest banks unless they cough up for mandatory call labeling. Truly peak efficiency.
The conflict pits the Big Four operators—VimpelCom, MegaFon, MTS, and T2 Mobile—against a financial heavy-hitting lineup including Alfa-Bank, VTB, GPB, Renaissance Credit, Sberbank, Sovcombank, and T-Bank. Operators intend to start blocking all unlabelled incoming calls from these banks on October 15, citing a refusal to sign the required contracts for call verification.
While nearly every other business sector has complied, the banking giants are digging in their heels, claiming the government's regulatory requirements are technically flawed and legally questionable. Maksut Shadayev, head of Mintsifry, has even been dragged in to beg Elvira Nabiullina of the Central Bank to force the banks into line, fearing that if the banks' millions of daily calls go dark, there might be significant socioeconomic fallout.
The scale of the noise is massive: internal reports suggest Alfa-Bank alone generates over 43 million calls a month, with other giants contributing millions more in what operators describe as spam-heavy behavior. Banks, represented by Andrey Emelin of the National Financial Council, argue that forcing them to pay for the labeling system is a blatant cash grab and a misinterpretation of existing federal laws. They suggest the legal burden of labeling should fall solely on the telecom companies, not the callers themselves.
It’s truly touching to see multi-billion dollar entities argue over who pays for a "Verified" tag, as if the average person cares about the difference between a "verified" loan offer and a "classic" unsolicited sales pitch. Perhaps if they spent less time calling everyone on the planet, they wouldn't need to worry about being blocked in the first place.
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