The Central Bank has not yet received an invitation to join the European counterpart of SWIFT, Chairperson of the Bank of Russia Elvira Nabiullina said on Friday on the air with Rossiya 24 TV Channel, TASS reports.
"We believe such concept [of counterpart of SWIFT payment system - TASS] is feasible. As far as the European [initiative] is concerned, this is their project. We have not yet received invitations to participate in it but if they are suddenly received, we will certainly consider them," Nabiullina said.
Russia has already implemented the initiative of creating a payment system being an alternative to SWIFT and a technical opportunity has been prepared to connect foreign counterparties, she said.
"We have a complete analog of SWIFT and this is not a merely theoretical model or some tests - this is a functioning model. We have now more than 10% of all financial messages passing through the system. Banks are connected to it; corporations and treasuries have an opportunity to connect. Solutions are ready in technical terms, if foreign participants want to connect," Nabiullina noted.
