Russia calls on BRICS members to integrate payment systems

Russia has called on members of the BRICS group of emerging economies to integrate their payment systems while using their national currencies for trade.

This comes as the West’s unprecedented anti-Moscow sanctions over the Ukraine conflict had cut some Russian banks off from the SWIFT interbank messaging and financial system.

According to Press TV, speaking at a meeting of ministers from the five-member BRICS group, namely, Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa on Saturday, Russian Minister of Finance Anton Siluanov said the economy of the globe had suffered greatly due to the sanctions.

The sanctions were not only damaging the world's economy, but also destroying the foundation of the existing international monetary and financial system which has been based on the US dollar, he added.

Siluanov said the current economic crisis necessitated a joint effort by BRICS to put in place exigency measures to control the damage and end the current global economic crisis.

"This pushes us to the need to speed up work in the following areas: the use of national currencies for export-import operations, the integration of payment systems and cards, our own financial messaging system and the creation of an independent BRICS rating agency," he said.

Siluanov insisted that the measures taken by the BRICS group members could end the global economic crisis because the recent downward trend in the economic situation was "man-made", implying that the global economy had been sabotaged by the West.

ME