The annual Finance Committee meeting took place on 4 June 2015 at UIC. Jean-Pierre Loubinoux, Director General of UIC, opened the meeting in front of over 20 representatives from the Financial Departments of European UIC members. After a warm welcome from the President of the Committee, David Sitruk, SNCF, and the UIC Finance Director, Thierry Bera, the group moderators of seven regular finance groups gave presentations on the results of their work for the previous year and an upcoming programme for the next year.
Antoaneta Galabova, BDZ, moderator of the group PATRIC (audit passenger group), explained that the most commonly noted deficiencies during audits are in connection with fraud prevention (stock control, leaflet 361), after sales procedures (refund, cancellations) and accounting systems.
Sabine Dambuyant, SNCF, moderator of the group RCF 1, Accounting and Financial Regulations – Passenger Working Party, and coordinator of the groups PATRIC, RCF 1, 2 and 3, underlined that the ambition of the group RCF 1 will be to start of a new study on UIC 361 in order to take into account new distribution channels. She also made a presentation of the group RCF 2, Accounting and Financial Regulations – Freight Working Party, replacing Kurt Gründler, ÖBB.
Markus Sahli, SBB, presented work of the group RCF 3, Financial relations between railway undertakings – Principles and terms of application, which renewed its activity after a six-year pause. He explained that the group concentrated on the revision of leaflet 311, taking into account the negative Euribor and negative interest due for late payments.
Dénes Kovac, MAV, moderator of the Debts Group, presented working progress of ODC (Office of Debt Clearance), results of the inquiry about the remaining debt from the period 1991-1995, new debt levels in 2014 and 2015, and discussed the organisation of the Creditors Forum in the autumn of 2015.
Roman Sterba, CD, presented the work of the Statistics Group which focuses on finance and railway statistics. He went through the railway publications, collection of data and news on Railisa.
Herwig Rausch, ÖBB, who replaced the Taxation Group moderator Karl Fally, ÖBB, and Audrey Davodeau, SNCF, explained the work of the group which emphasised international passenger transport, taxation of energy and the weight of tax in the railway sector.
The meeting was further animated by Nicolas Craven who presented the COP 21 programme and its targets; Oana Patraulsecu, who presented Quality Management System programme at UIC; and John Lutz, who talked about SHIFT²Rail.
