TEHRAN, July 6 The project to unite the Iranian and Russian payment systems «Shetab» and «Mir» has reached a practical level, said the head of the Central Bank of the Islamic Republic Mohammad Farzin, his words are quoted by the Tasnim agency.
“At a bilateral meeting of delegations of specialists from the two countries, along with the finalization of the requirements for connecting the Russian Mir payment system to the Iranian SHETAB system, the project reached a practical level,” he said.
According to Farzin, it will be possible to use Mir cards in Iran at the end of August. In turn, citizens of the Islamic Republic will be able to receive rubles from Russian ATMs using Shetab system cards, he added.
In addition, the head of the Central Bank announced the conclusion of a currency agreement with Moscow in order to ensure the liquidity of national currencies. The banking system and businessmen will be given the necessary instructions soon after the launch of a platform for transactions with offshore rials at the Iranian Currency and Gold Exchange Center, he specified.
The need to unite the payment systems of the two countries appeared back in 2018, when Tehran was disconnected from the system international SWIFT transfers. And in June 2022, due to the situation in Ukraine, it ceased to apply to a number of Russian banks, including Sberbank and VTB.
In May 2022, Moscow and Tehran agreed to switch to mutual settlements in national currencies. At the end of January 2023, representatives of the Central Banks of the two countries signed an agreement on work to simplify financial and banking operations. Farzin then stated that the Financial Messaging System of the Central Bank of Russia had merged with SEPAM (System for Electronic Payments Messaging) of the Central Bank of Iran.