MOSCOW, April 22. /TASS/. Many countries will soon connect to the System for Transfer of Financial Messages (SPFS), Russian equivalent of SWIFT, Anatoly Aksakov, head of the State Duma Committee on the Financial Market, said at a press conference in TASS.

"The number of participants in the SPFS system from abroad will expand, first of all, these are the countries of the Eurasian Union. We have our own internal Russian system SPFS, an analogue of SWIFT. It operates efficiently, there are about 300 participants. Banks are all connected to the system, so transfers, payments within Russia are proceeding without problems. Negotiations are still underway, 10 countries have been definitely connected to this system, primarily the countries of the Eurasian Union. Negotiations are underway with China, India. In general, we have already "docked" all the platforms with India, so we can get down to real work," he said.

Aksakov also said that at present virtually all Russian banks are involved in SPFS, so the departure of Mastercard and Visa had no effect on domestic settlements. However, by decision of Western unfriendly countries, the largest banks are disconnected from the SWIFT system, and therefore international settlements are "suspended". However, financial interest will overcome all fears associated with political risks.

Earlier, Western countries imposed sanctions against the Russian banking sector. In particular, the European Union disconnected seven Russian banks from the SWIFT international system of interbank payments, including VTB, Rossiya Bank, Otkritie, Novikombank, Promsvyazbank, Sovcombank and VEB.RF. The European Commission stressed that Brussels is ready to add new banks to this list if necessary.

In 2014, the Bank of Russia launched SPFS in test mode. This system can transmit data in the SWIFT format, but does not depend on its channels. In 2017, SPFS started working in full, transmitting messages about transactions in any currency.