Putin: BRICS infrastructure enough for cross-border payments

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Cross-border payments for trade between BRICS countries are experiencing problems, but there are no plans to create a special system because the existing infrastructure is sufficient, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday.

Delays in payments for trade with Russia’s major partners such as China or Turkey where banks are under pressure from Western regulators to scrutinise transactions with Russia have become a major headache for Russian companies and banks.

Before the summit, Russia outlined an alternative payment system in national BRICS currencies that would include a new messaging system and a network of national commercial banks linked to each other through the BRICS central banks.

“The question is very important today. One of the key issues is the problem of settlements,” Putin told the news conference after the summit.

The Russian-hosted summit of the BRICS nations —Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa — ended on Thursday.

Putin said the existing financial messaging system, created by the Russian central bank as well as similar systems run by other BRICS central banks could be used to facilitate mutual payments in national currencies.

“But we are not inventing any separate joint system for now. What we already have is on the whole sufficient,” Putin said.