Bercut Helps Telecom Operators Transition to New VAT Rate
Bercut, part of the Rostelecom Group, completed the transition for seven operators across Russia and Kazakhstan in less than a month, executing system-wide upgrades without service disruptions.
Rapid Regulatory Shift Demanded Fast IT Response
As Russia’s VAT rate increased to 22% on January 1, telecom operators faced a narrow window to update billing and payment systems. The change required immediate adjustments across payment processing and billing infrastructure. Updates had to be delivered within weeks to ensure compliance.
The episode underscores the operational maturity of Russia’s telecom IT ecosystem. Bercut, a Rostelecom subsidiary specializing in BSS platforms, helped seven telecom operators in Russia and CIS markets adapt to the revised tax framework. The entire transition was completed in under one month.
According to Rostelecom’s press service, the work was structured in two phases. First, payment acceptance mechanisms were recalibrated to reflect the updated VAT rate. Second, all Bercut clients using the company’s BBS platform in Russia and Kazakhstan were migrated to the new operational scheme.
Zero Downtime Under Peak Load
To align system algorithms with the revised VAT rate, Bercut analyzed, redesigned and deployed updated functionality across two modules of its Convergent BSS platform. The upgrades covered the payment protocol and the IN@VoiceKassa fiscal solution.
Test validation followed on customer equipment under peak-load conditions. Monitoring was conducted using Bercut’s rating engine, which accounts for VAT during subscriber payment processing. The stress-testing phase was designed to simulate maximum transaction volumes.
In the overnight window between December 31 and January 1, all client systems were successfully switched to the new configuration. The transition was completed without outages or material service issues.
“Amendments to the Tax Code officially took effect in late November 2025, after which the regulator introduced additional changes to transaction protocols,” said Valentin Sergienkov, Head of Production at Bercut. “Despite the compressed timeline, we had to finalize internal solution updates by December 20 to leave customers sufficient time for testing.”
Regulatory Agility as Competitive Advantage
The experience demonstrates that domestic telecom software providers can rapidly implement regulatory-driven upgrades without compromising system stability or user experience. In this case, speed did not undermine reliability. End users experienced no service disruption.
Beyond compliance, Bercut’s expertise may hold export potential. Building on its operational experience, the company could develop packaged billing and compliance solutions for CIS markets, where it already maintains a presence.
Broader Digital Ecosystem Expansion
Rostelecom’s broader digital strategy reinforces these competencies. The company plays an active role in building Russia’s digital infrastructure, including smart city systems where electronics and sensor networks monitor environments and help prevent incidents.
“The key element of modern urban development is the creation of digital twins for regions, subsystems and individual facilities,” said Ilya Golovnin, Director for Digital Regions at Rostelecom’s Ural division. “For authorities, this is not just visualization. It is an integrated environment for control, modeling and forecasting. For example, digital twins allow planners to estimate transportation load when constructing a new residential district or calculate energy consumption in a specific area with high precision.”
Rostelecom is also expanding into digital platform investments. In December, the company acquired a stake in the platform employment service Rabochie Ruki. The deal allows the platform to expand its user base while enabling Rostelecom to broaden its digital services portfolio.
Ultimately, participation in diverse digital infrastructure projects strengthens the operator’s cross-sector capabilities. That expansion of expertise enables it to address challenges beyond its traditional telecom niche.
