Russia’s second largest bank, VTB, has launched a new service allowing both individuals and businesses to transfer money to and from Iran, the lender said, RT reported.
State-owned VTB, which has been subject to sweeping western sanctions since late February, has thus become the first lender to provide banking services to Iran, a country that has been under international restrictions for decades.
The bank’s vice president, Denis Valvachyov, believes that such transactions will be in high demand and that the move will strengthen economic cooperation and boost tourism between the two countries, the broadcaster said Monday.
The new service will allow money to be sent between Russia and Iran using account details within a day. Next year, VTB is planning to expand transaction services with so-called ‘friendly’ nations, a classification describing those that have not imposed sanctions on Russia.
Payments are currently available to the bank’s clients in more than ten former CIS states and some Asian countries.
Central banks in Iran and Russia have been working on linking their domestic payment networks since 2017. It was announced earlier that integration of Iranian and Russian bank card networks is expected to be completed early next year.
Last summer, the financial system in Iran prepared infrastructure to join the Mir system. But after sanctions were announced on Russia for invading Ukraine in February that cut off Russian bank access to SWIFT, the two sides decided to focus on creating a rival to SWIFT for cross-border payments.
