Timur Aitov: «Settlements between countries will be possible only in a closed circuit»
Hope that a decision on the creation of an independent payment system will be made at the October BRICS summit in Kazan was expressed by the Speaker of the Federation Council of the Russian Federation Valentina Matvienko. Experts claim that if the project is implemented, then after its implementation SWIFT will turn into a tool for servicing payments of the USA and its satellites and will lose its status at the global level. Timur Aitov, Chairman of the Commission on Financial and Information Security of the Council of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of the Russian Federation, told MK about the challenges that Russia and its BRICS partners will need to respond to in the course of creating alternative payment solutions.
— Let's look at an example. In 2023, exports from China to Russia amounted to $110 billion. If additional fees due to the organizational complexity of cross-border payments are estimated at +5%, then losses in the «Chinese direction» alone for this reason will amount to $5.5 billion annually. The total real damage is even greater: after all, this rough estimate does not include the costs of new complex logistics routes, expensive insurance, etc. Non-payments lead to downtime, delays in shipments of goods, and sometimes to their complete rejection. All fees, real costs and risks of new losses are all included in the price of Chinese goods, and it is growing. What is happening is reflected, for example, in the cost of Chinese cars in Russia.
— It is still unclear to experts what exactly was announced to us as the future “analogue of the SWIFT system”. The current SWIFT is in fact not a payment system, but a system for transmitting financial messages — a kind of specialized electronic document management system. In reality, payments are made through completely different channels. Nevertheless, there are examples of well-functioning SWIFT analogues in the world. For example, China has its own national system that performs both functions simultaneously — both payment and transmission of financial messages. The system is directly used by Chinese banks.
On the other hand, according to the Russian Presidential Aide Yuri Ushakov, we are talking about creating a payment system, and, as he emphasized, on the blockchain. Therefore, in order to speak more specifically about this project, it is important to have in hand the so-called concept note — the general concept of the project on paper, and not an oral statement of intent. Nevertheless, I will express confidence that insurmountable technological difficulties, of course, will not arise, although problems with fears of falling under secondary sanctions will probably remain.
— No. An important question is also related to the efficiency of the system as a whole: what will actually be the means of payment in this “SWIFT analogue”? As I understand it, there will be no single currency in BRICS, it has already been abandoned, and some clearing unit of account based on a basket of non-convertible currencies is being discussed. But here too there are questions about the efficiency of its use. The most controversial point is the high volatility of the new basket. Another question that is being discussed is whether there will be a certain amount of gold in this basket, etc.
— I am sure that the successful experience of creating payment systems of integration associations such as the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA — an intergovernmental economic organization of the socialist bloc countries that operated in 1949-1991. — «MK»), in which the transferable ruble was used for settlements for goods and services, will help in assessing the new «SWIFT analogue» project and choosing suitable solutions. The settlements implied multilateral clearing — the country's import debt could be covered by counter-exports and by deliveries to third countries. There was a specially created International Bank for Economic Cooperation (IBEC), which issued a supranational currency and it was possible to take a loan in it from the IBEC at 1.5%. The national currencies of the participating countries were retained, that is, the Bulgarian lev, Polish zloty, Czech crown, etc. remained in circulation.
It is curious that the initiative to create a supranational currency came personally from Stalin, on whose instructions the principles of settlements based on the transferable ruble were developed already in the 1950s. The current geopolitical situation is reminiscent of the recent past: settlements between countries today are guaranteed to be possible only in a closed circuit, as was organized by means of the transferable ruble in friendly CMEA countries. Here all the words are important — both that the circuit is closed, and that the countries are friendly, because unfriendly countries will not accept any transferable ruble or its analogue. It will be impossible to exchange it for dollars or euros. Let me remind you that the gold content of our transferable ruble was 0.987412 g of pure gold.
— All the discussed large financial communications structures such as SWIFT are visible, so they can be easily disabled. Small ones do not have a sufficient number of users, so it is right for us to move towards decentralized solutions in projects — small distributed technological infrastructures. In this case, the phrase “distributed structure” has nothing to do with blockchain. Rather, it is a system of “microswifts” — a kind of cubes that, like a Lego constructor, can independently combine into groups, having their own local standards. The cubes must be such that it is possible to ensure a flexible configuration of the entire system as a whole, while guaranteeing the impossibility of isolation, disconnection from services of any participant in the bundle. All this is just a general idea — it is not so easy to organize cubes, you can get confused or deprive the system of efficiency. But this is clearly a new direction — creation of such systems of cellular structure for global services.
All mechanisms that exclude the possibility of discrimination against anyone are important today. For example, such a scheme will allow the creation of local communities within the framework of a single global platform with their own rules, say, for the same Muslims, who may have additional financial restrictions.
— Hopes are also pinned on crypto instruments, on the creation of some “murky” gaskets in the form of “proxy exchanges” with cryptocurrency trading between specific business representatives in Russia, China and other countries. Crypto in these schemes is nothing more than a digital tool for ensuring barter transactions, nothing more. However, sanctions bans will be able to reach crypto exchanges, and there are examples.
In general, the idea of creating payment systems with «covering up tracks» is not so simple and, upon closer examination, does not save settlements in fiat (real, genuine — «MK») currencies, simply because the latter are ultimately terminated in bank accounts. A closed circuit is required, where foreign regulators or transnational banks cannot «get into».
— I don't see any particular obstacles: it's not that difficult to create analogues and there are examples of implemented systems. I'll mention our Central Bank Financial Messaging System (SPFS), which is successfully operating in our country. Similar systems operate in many other countries around the world. I'll note that in any similar project, in addition to functionality, the client base is important — it's its size that put the existing SWIFT in first place.
— The PRC really does have its own long-term experience of working with this Islamic republic, which has long been under Western sanctions, through a specially created bank. It does not connect to any systems like SWIFT at all, and therefore is «invisible» to transnational banks. In the current geopolitical realities, it is necessary to create duplicate channels of payments, communications, and some services. Even crypto instruments are involved. All this, of course, is not very efficient from the point of view of economics, but it reduces the risks of blocking, denial of service and other similar problems. A large-scale system with multiple participants is probably more convenient, more functional and has lower costs per operation, on the other hand, it is more visible.