Russian Finance Ministry Sees Prerequisites For More Ruble Settlements In External Trade

Fahad Shabbir (@FahadShabbir) Published September 11, 2019 | 11:42 AM

The Russian Finance Ministry believes that there are prerequisites in place to boost the share of ruble settlements in trade with foreign partners, Deputy Finance Minister Alexey Moiseev said on Tuesday, noting that the move would eliminate problems related to the use of Western payment systems

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 11th September, 2019) The Russian Finance Ministry believes that there are prerequisites in place to boost the share of ruble settlements in trade with foreign partners, Deputy Finance Minister Alexey Moiseev said on Tuesday, noting that the move would eliminate problems related to the use of Western payment systems.

"There are certain prerequisites in place for increasing the share of international settlements in the ruble," Moiseev said in an interview with the Rossiya 24 broadcaster, ahead of the Moscow Financial Forum.

In particular, Moiseev recalled that the Russian Central Bank had created its own financial messaging system (SPFS), which is already functioning and allows for export payments to be carried out in rubles, bypassing SWIFT.

Currently, sanctioned Russian banks often face problems while working with SWIFT, although there are no formal reasons for that.

"We know that sanctions do not restrict any trade payments, but in fact our trade partners do face big problems when payments [made with SWIFT] are delayed under various pretexts, quite far-fetched," Moiseev added.

According to the deputy minister, payments in rubles solve the problem of these "unjust counterparties" completely as the country switches from SWIFT to SPFS.

The Moscow Financial Forum will run from September 12-13. The Rossiya Segodnya International Information Agency is an official media partner of the event.