Russian Central Bank First Deputy Governor Olga Skorobogatova suggested on Thursday discussing the establishment of an alternative to the international payments provider SWIFT at the level of BRICS forum or the European Union.
SOCHI (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 06th September, 2018) Russian Central Bank First Deputy Governor Olga Skorobogatova suggested on Thursday discussing the establishment of an alternative to the international payments provider SWIFT at the level of BRICS forum or the European Union.
"If such discussion [of SWIFT alternative's elaboration] is initiated at the level of BRICS or the European Union, I believe it would be useful consultations. It does not mean that the existing systems should be abolished or replaced, this means that another system might be created, [the one that] would help to make calculations differently and, perhaps, this system would be more effective," Skorobogatova indicated on the sidelines of the 10th Global Policy Forum of the Alliance for Financial Inclusion in the Russian city of Sochi.
In August, German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas called on the European Union to set up an independent equivalent of the SWIFT system in order to protect the EU firms from the US sanctions against Iran, targeting actors doing business with the Islamic Republic.
Chairman of the Russian State Duma Committee on Financial Markets Anatoly Aksakov said back then in his comments to Sputnik that the desire of the EU politicians to set up an alternative to SWIFT might be explained by the wish to conduct payment transactions with other countries in the euro. According to the lawmaker, this would require the creature of an autonomous infrastructure, which will help to prevent all the financial transaction reports going through the United States, which currently possess large part of such data since the majority of transactions are carried out in the US Dollar.
