SOCHI, September 29 Russia should abandon the use of the international payment system SWIFT and switch to international payments in national currencies, said VTB CEO Andrei Kostin, speaking at the International Banking Forum .
«SWIFT — we need to kill it for our calculations, this matter is quite simple, but it will require certain actions, including within individual countries,» the banker said.
He recalled that most payments are already made in national currencies; China, Indonesia, India, Arab and African states are turning to this practice.
«De facto, in our practice, such a reorientation towards financial settlements with the South in national currencies — which is the task we set — is being implemented to a large extent,» Kostin added.
According to him, this process can no longer be stopped. When other countries saw that «the Americans were so tight on the dollar and the Europeans on the euro,» they realized they could be next.