Russia appears to want to circumvent the Swift ban using blockchain technology.
A new payment system
The Russian Rostec Group is a government organization that includes a number of technology companies. This group has announced that they have developed a blockchain platform to launch a digital international payments system that can replace the global Swift system.
Russian banks were banned from the SWIFT system last February thanks to sanctions imposed by Western countries in response to the Russo-Ukrainian war. Since then, Moscow has been trying to find an alternative financial payment system for SWIFT to protect its foreign trade transactions.
The new digital system will allow Russia to pay for its imports in its national currency, the ruble, instead of the dollar. According to the Rostec group, the new system will also allow foreign countries to pay for their imports from Russia in their national currency as well.
A serious alternative to the SWIFT system
The new blockchain platform, on which the international payments will take place, will be called CELLS. According to Rostec, it was developed by the Novosibirsk Institute of Software Systems (NIPS), which is affiliated with the Rostec Group.
According to the Russian group, the platform includes everything to make payments in the national currencies of the countries associated with it. The company claims its new system could provide a serious alternative to the international payment services of the SWIFT system” from which Russian banks have been isolated under Western sanctions.
In addition to the international payment service, the CELLS platform offers its users the ability to create wallets to store digital currencies, the statement said.
Russia promises secure transactions
Oleg Yevtushenko, the CEO of the Rostec Group, promises that the new international payment system will guarantee high speed and secure transactions. He also says that the new digital system can execute about 100,000 transactions per second, with the potential to double that number.
Yevtushenko also explained that the local national currency payment feature offered by the new system will allow users to bypass Western sanctions against Russia.
The Rostec group targets large companies that have commercial relations with Russia, as well as foreign government agencies that do business with Moscow, as well as financial institutions and banks.
