Russia To Have Its Own International Inter-Bank System By May 2015: CBR

Russia plans to launch its own international inter-bank system by May 2015. The country desperately is trying to detach from the international system in order to gain more independence and wants to be prepared for the worst case scenario in case of possible ”challenges” from the West.

“Given the challenges, Bank of Russia is creating its own system for transmitting financial messaging… It’s time to hurry up, so in the next few months we will have certain work done. The entire project for transmitting financial messages will be completed in May 2015,” said Ramilya Kanafina, deputy head of the national payment system department at the Central Bank of Russia (CBR).

SWIFT, is currently one of Russia’s main connections to the international banking system, and if turned off, could hurt the Russian economy, in the short-term. Globally it transmits orders for transactions worth more than $6 trillion, and involves more than 10,000 financial institutions in 210 countries.

SWIFT system has disconnected all Iranian banks from its international network as a sanction against Iran. In August 2014 the U.K. planned to press the EU to block Russian use of SWIFT as a sanction due to alleged Russia’s involvement in the conflict in Ukraine. However, SWIFT refused to follow the suggestion and in their official statement they said, “SWIFT regrets the pressure, as well as the surrounding media speculation, both of which risk undermining the systemic character of the services that SWIFT provides its customers around the world”.

ETFs: ERUS, RSX, RBL, RSXJ

Source: RT, Wikipedia