Russia Offers SWIFT Alternative: The Government of India is considering an offer from Russia for the use of a system developed by Russia’s central bank for the purpose of bilateral payments. India wants to buy oil and weapons from sanctions-hit Russia. This information has been received by quoting people with knowledge of the incident.
Sources said the plan includes rupee-ruble denominated payments using Russia’s messaging system SPFS. No decision has been taken yet and the issue is likely to be discussed during the two-day visit of Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to India starting on Thursday.
Russian central bank officials may visit India next week
Sources said that officials of Russia’s central bank are likely to visit India next week to discuss the issue in detail. He said the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is regularly meeting executives of its banking system to discuss various issues including the risks of exposure and sanctions to Russia.
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A spokesperson of the Finance Ministry could not be reached for comment in this regard. There is no response yet on the email sent to RBI.
India wants to continue bilateral trade
India is keen to continue bilateral trade in the hope of getting cheaper oil due to Russia’s reliance on weapons and rising global prices. The government, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, is pushing for this despite pressure from Western countries and has argued that it is necessary to buy weapons from Russia in view of China’s increasing military aggression.
The new system will work like this
Sources said that under this proposal, the ruble will be deposited in Indian banks and will be converted into rupee and vice versa.
He said that after the suspension of operations of Visa Inc and Mastercard Inc, Russia also wants to link the Unified Payments Interface to its MIR payments system for seamless use of cards issued by Indian and Russian banks.
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