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Russia may switch over to national payment system for ruble transactions

Last week, the European Parliament adopted a resolution calling for banning Russia from the SWIFT payment system

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MOSCOW, September 22 /ITAR-TASS/. Russia may give up the SWIFT inter-bank settlement system for ruble transactions if necessary and switch over to the Bank of Russia’s payment system, the bank’s press service told ITAR-TASS on Monday.

Last week, the European Parliament adopted a resolution calling for banning Russia from the SWIFT payment system. SWIFT, which wants to be a global and neutral supplier of financial services, said however that the European Parliament’s recommendations had not affected its work with Russian companies.

Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said at a meeting with Russian business circles last Friday that Russia should be aware of the economic and political risks created by a possibility of being excluded from the SWIFT inter-bank financial message system. That is why the Russian government has already drafted a bill to create a local alternative to SWIFT.

The Bank of Russia is currently studying proposals of the Russian Finance Ministry on amendments to the law “On National Payment System”.

Early in September, the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs and the Rossiya association submitted a proposal to the Bank of Russia to create a Russian analogue to the SWIFT inter-bank financial message system. Also in September, the Finance Ministry published a bill introducing regulation of the SWIFT system, as well as Bloomberg and Reuters terminals.

The Bank of Russia is considering the application of the existing and currently used message transmission methods. The Bank of Russia is creating a uniform national infrastructure for swapping payments and other financial messages and is going to adopt a “roadmap” for future actions later, the Bank of Russia explained.

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