The BRICS countries will have to go through many approval procedures before creating their own secure payment system, so its launch is unlikely to happen in the near future. This opinion was expressed by Alexey Maslov, director of the Institute of Asian and African Countries (IAAC) at Lomonosov Moscow State University, in an interview with a media correspondent.
“I think that all of this will develop within the framework of the New BRICS Development Bank, which, in fact, was once created for this purpose, and first it will be necessary to go through many approval procedures, we must understand that this is not a question for tomorrow,” Maslov, who took part in the II Russian-Chinese Forum on Investment Development and Trade Cooperation in Shenyang, told media.
As Alexey Maslov said, the BRICS member states have different views on the prospects of creating a new payment system. “If Russia views this as a direct alternative to SWIFT, and China is generally ready to develop several parallel systems, then a number of other countries do not want to view this as an alternative, but rather simply as a simplification of payments,” suggested the director of the Moscow State University Institute of Asian and African Studies.
According to Alexey Maslov, sanctions against Russia, Iran, and several Chinese companies have very clearly shown that the world is not as stable as many assumed, and restrictions can be applied to any country. “What used to seem absolutely normal – globalization and a single payment system – today seems like a danger,” Maslov said
The professor noted that no one in the world had ever created several parallel payment systems. “This means that we will work through and develop a great deal of experience from our own mistakes, so we must approach this very carefully,” he summed up.
At a press conference following the BRICS summit in Kazan, Russian President Vladimir Putin noted that the countries of the group are not yet creating a separate payment system that would become an alternative to SWIFT but are using the Russian system for exchanging financial information and the systems of other countries participating in the group.
