Swift must be killed: Russia’s top banker

A leading banker has called on Moscow to completely shun SWIFT, the financial messaging system widely used for international transactions. Andrey Kastin, CEO of Russia’s second largest bank VTB, called for this.

Kastin has been demanding the use of local currencies instead of dollars in trade with Russia’s allies for some time. He was addressing an international banking forum in Sochi, Russia yesterday (Friday, 29 September).

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Kastin said: “We need to kill Swift in our transaction system. The matter is very simple. But for that, Russia and its allies need to take concrete steps.”

This leading Russian banker said that most of the transactions with China, Indonesia and India as well as Arab and African countries have been done in ruble.

According to Kastin, more and more countries will gradually join the process. He said, these countries will understand that they can be the next target of using dollar and euro as political tools of the West.

After Russia launched a military operation in Ukraine in February 2022, the US and European countries imposed tough sanctions against Moscow. These countries unanimously decided to expel Russia from SWIFT.

In response, Moscow made it mandatory for all countries to use the Russian currency, the ruble, to do business with it.