VTB has launched a mechanism for direct payments in Indian rupees for small and medium-sized businesses. This will avoid double conversion, speed up and simplify the work on foreign trade contracts.
“The direct settlement mechanism allows VTB customers to immediately fix the price of goods and the amount of payment in the national currency, receive individual quotes on market conditions and reduce costs due to the absence of additional conversion,” VTB said in a statement received by Kommersant. It is noted that the mechanism will also get rid of preliminary approvals of operations.
According to Indian media, the first transactions with settlements in rupees were carried out at the end of December. Vostro accounts (opened by a foreign bank in a resident bank in local currency or the currency of a third country) were opened by such Russian banks as Sberbank, VTB, Gazprombank, BCS, MTS, Tinkoff Bank, Soyuz, Credit Europe Bank, PSKB, Rosbank and AKB.
Zamir Kabulov, director of the second department of the Russian Foreign Ministry, said last week that Russia and India are “fundamentally moving away” from the dollar and the euro in mutual trade. In his opinion, it is not possible to completely switch to national currencies due to an imbalance in trade operations.
Source: BRICS website
