The Ministry of Finance and the Knesset are not fazed by claims from the Bank of Israel of "material flaws in the process of legislating the recommendations of the Strum committee". Yesterday, the full and final draft of the bill was laid before the Knesset. The bill is expected to come before the Knesset plenum for second and third readings next week.
The bill is intended to boost competition and reduce concentration in Israel's banking system.
The 37-page bill provides for separation of the credit card companies from the major banks within three years. It also includes a "read only" clause that will allow third parties access to information on bank customers for the purpose of making competing offers.
The bill also authorizes the Minister of Finance to make regulations covering which information will be disclosed, the way in which it will be presented, the way in which requests to view the information will be submitted, and so on. The Governor of the Bank of Israel has an advisory role only on these matters.
The Bank of Israel opposes this section. The central bank's legal counsel Tida Shamir wrote a sharp letter two days ago to Knesset legal counsel Eyal Yinon demanding that he should intervene, as, according to the Bank of Israel, the section was approved in an underhand way and it contradicts, and renders superfluous, the setting up of a credit database.
Yesterday, Dror Strum, who heads the Strum committee, rejected the Bank of Israel's claims out of hand.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on January 19, 2017
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