MOSCOW, July 24. /TASS/. Member states of the BRICS group of nations are discussing Iran’s initiative to integrate their national payment systems within the group’s framework, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Andrey Rudenko has told TASS in an interview.

"Various options related to integrating financial markets of the BRICS members, [such as] payments in national currencies and new mechanisms of mutual financial settlements — including [those suggested] by Iran — are now being considered," he said, commenting on Tehran’s proposal to integrate payment systems of the BRICS member countries as Russia and Iran had done with their Mir and Shetab electronic banking clearance and automated payments systems.

Rudenko underscored that "creating clearance and payment infrastructure that would be independent and resilient to the pressure of sanctions" would be an important step in strengthening the financial sovereignty of BRICS.

However, Iran’s initiative is still being discussed and "it is yet too early to speak of any final parameters," the high-ranking Russian diplomat added.

On July 4, Governor of the Central Bank of Iran Mohammadreza Farzin held negotiations with Governor of the Bank of Russia Elvira Nabiullina in St. Petersburg. On July 6, he said that at the meeting the parties noted the completion of work on integrating the Russian payment system Mir and the Iranian payment system Shetab and also signed an agreement on providing liquidity to national currencies for commercial transactions.

According to the head of the Central Bank of Iran, from August 22, Iranians will be able to withdraw rubles from Shetab smart cards at all Russian ATMs. It is planned that in the next stages of the project Russians will be able to use Mir cards in Iran and Shetab owners will be able to pay for purchases in Russian stores with Iranian bank cards.