State Bank of India (SBI) is willing to work with Russian banks not facing sanctions and remain on the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) network to open a special rupee vostro account (SRVA) for invoicing in Indian currency.<\/p>\n
![\"SBI\"](\"https:\/\/im.rediff.com\/money\/2017\/nov\/27sbi.jpg?w=670&h=900\" "\\"SBI\\"")
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Photograph: Shailesh Andrade\/Reuters<\/span><\/p>\n The country\u2019s largest lender in a statement said it has not been identified as the nodal bank for handling Russia-related transactions.<\/p>\n In July, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) allowed banks in India, including SBI, to open an SRVA to promote invoicing in Indian rupee, subject to certain safeguards.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Accordingly, the bank in a statement said it is \u201cmaking necessary arrangements and processing requests received from various banks, including Russian banks\u201d, following guidelines laid out by the RBI.<\/p>\n The banking regulator had allowed Indian banks in July to open SRVAs with lenders of other nations to settle overseas trades in the Indian currency.<\/p>\n A vostro account is opened by a domestic bank with a foreign correspondent bank to act as an agent for the domestic bank.<\/p>\n Following the Russia-Ukraine stand-off, many Russian banks are facing sanctions from western countries.<\/p>\n They have also been removed from the SWIFT network.<\/p>\n This meant loss of access to the normal smooth and instant transactions provided by the network and disruption in payments for Russia\u2019s valuable energy and agricultural exports.<\/p>\n Banks facing sanctions now have to deal directly with other banking entities, causing delays and extra costs.<\/p>\n In 2018, public sector lender UCO Bank was chosen to route payments from India for oil imports from Iran to overcome US sanctions.<\/p>\n Under the payment mechanism, the money of oil imports from Iran was to be deposited into escrow accounts of five of their banks held with state-run UCO Bank.<\/p>\n SBI executives said the RBI has made it very clear that opening of such special accounts is subject to sanctioned entities and any Financial Action Task Force negative list.<\/p>\n SBI would not be dealing with many Russian banks and entities facing sanctions since it has a large presence in developed markets that have imposed sanctions on Russia.<\/p>\n Some banks from countries that have significant trade with India have evinced an interest in a special vostro account.<\/p>\n The talks are still in the preliminary phase, they added.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n[ad_2]\n<\/p>\n News From This Website <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"