The Central Bank of Russia’s governor, Elvira Nabiullina, says 159 foreign participants are using the Russian Payment System, Mir, which aims to act as an alternative to the Swift* system which has been widely used worldwide for inter-country payments for trade and services since its introduction in 2017.
In a report about the state of the new payment system, she said that they were actively recruiting within the Brics countries, particularly with its expansion from five members to 10, announced last year.
Russia is one of the members, along with Brazil, India, China and South Africa, which initially made up Brics.
Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) were admitted as members, effective from January 1.
The bloc is now known as Brics+.
Nabiullina added that there was much interest within the trade bloc for a new world order for international financing, which would reduce the dominance of the American dollar, a move referred to as “de-dollarisation”.
She said there were presently about 30 countries that had expressed an interest in becoming members of Brics+.
- Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications.
