On November 11, a press conference devoted to the sixth international forum on banking technologies Bank IT’09 to be held from November 18 to November 19, 2009 in Minsk, Belarus, was organized at the National Press Center of Belarus.

Ivan Pischik, Head of the Central Payment System Board with the National Bank of Belarus; Oleg Veremeichik, Head of the Central Department of Information Technologies of the National Bank of Belarus; Felix Chernyavskiy, Chairman of the Association of Belarusian Banks; Vladimir Basko, Director General of the Belarusian IT association Infopark; and CEOs of leading Belarusian IT companies including Sergei Levteev, IBA CEO, appeared before the press.

The speakers argued about the increasing role of the Bank IT forum as the largest venue that sets out a strategy for cooperation among IT companies and banking institutions in Belarus. It was announced at the press conference that representatives of 32 banks and more than 50 companies from Belarus, India, Italy, Latvia, Russia, and Ukraine, as well as world IT leaders, such as IBM, Oracle, APC, Sun Microsystems, and Samsung will participate in the event. Roughly 700 visitors are expected to attend the forum.

“This year, Bank IT is being held in the time of world economic recession. The primary reasons for the crisis, in my view, are informational,” said Levteev. He also added: “At the upcoming event, IBA will present innovative IT products and effective, proven solutions that are designed to help financial institutions find reliable and up-to-date anti-crisis solutions and expand their service portfolios.”

The journalists asked numerous questions including those related to the development of the national interbank settlement system with the use of the plastic cards “BelCard”. In more detail, the issue will be discussed at the forum Bank IT’09.