TEHRAN, January 8 Russia and Iran have connected their financial messaging systems, so now their banks can carry out transactions directly, said Mohsen Karimi, deputy head of the Central Bank of Iran for international affairs. MASS MEDIA.
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“We have connected the transmission systems (financial — ed.) of the two countries with each other. This means that banks of the two countries no longer need Switzerland to communicate with each other and commercial banks of both countries can establish intermediary relations with each other. The exporter can issue an invoice to the Russian side in rials and receive money from Russian banks in Iran,” Fars news agency quotes Karimi as saying.
The deputy head of the Iranian Central Bank also emphasized that exporters of both countries can carry out transactions in their national currencies.
A day earlier, Hossein Ayvazlu, a member of the executive board of the National Development Fund of Iran, said that the national wealth funds of Russia and Iran plan to create joint investment committees to implement various projects in the oil and gas, petrochemical, pharmaceutical and a number of other areas.
The head of the Central Bank of Iran, Mohammad Farzin, said at the end of December that a currency agreement between Iran and Russia, which will allow trade in rubles and rials, will be signed in the first quarter of 2024. In the last week of 2023, Farzin paid a two-day visit to Moscow, where he met with the head of the Bank of Russia, Elvira Nabiullina. It was noted that following the meeting, the parties agreed to open a credit line in the amount of 6.5 billion rubles for Iran to import necessary goods from Russia. As the Tasnim agency reported with reference to the Central Bank of Iran, the Iranian bank Sepah opened the first foreign letter of credit for importing goods from Russia after the US Department of Justice restored the sanctions regime against the Islamic Republic.