Russia says it will no longer disclose the names of organizations that use its

• Some Russian banks have been banned from the SWIFT banking system due to the Ukraine war.

• Russia is now urging the use of its alternative System for Transfer of Financial Messages.

• Russia’s central bank said it will stop revealing the names of those participating in its alternative to SWIFT.

Russia’s central bank will stop disclosing the names of those participating in its alternative to the SWIFT payment system, according to Reuters.

Some Russian banks have been banned from the SWIFT banking system as part of the sweeping sanctions against the country over the Ukraine war. The ban has hampered cross-border transactions for Russia’s trade and financial systems, isolating the country economically.

But Russia has been touting its alternative payment system — the System for Transfer of Financial Messages (SPFS), which was set up in 2014.

“Under the current conditions we have made the decision not to reveal the list of organisations connected to SPFS. Still, this list is available for users of the system,” the Russian central bank told Reuters in an email. The institution used to publish a list of SPFS users on the website but recently stopped the practice, per Bloomberg.

Most Russian banks, as well as 52 foreign organizations from 12 countries, have access to SPFS, Russian Central Bank governor Elvira Nabiullina said on Monday, per Reuters.

Banks from the Germany, Switzerland, France, Japan, Sweden, Turkey, and Cuba were among those connected to SPFS, according to a March report from Coface, a French credit insurer.

“Until there was such a threat of being cut off from SWIFT, foreign partners weren’t in much of a rush to join, but now we expect their readiness to be greater,” Nabiullina said of SPFS, according to Bloomberg.

The Indian government was considering a Russian proposal to use the SPFS for payments in rubles, Bloomberg reported in March. India has been buying cargoes of cheap Russian oil amid international sanctions and boycotts of products from the energy powerhouse. Russian oil accounted for just 2% of India’s total imports in 2021.

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