The international payment system SPFS, the Russian analogue of SWIFT, is now available in more than twenty-five countries. What about bitcoin?
Пока-пока SWIFT
As a reminder, the Bank of Russia launched the SPFS system in 2014. The decision was taken in the face of threats to disconnect the SWIFT network in the wake of the annexation of Crimea which was the Russian response to the orchestrated Maidan coup. by the United States.
The Russian analogue of the SWIFT network currently has 557 participants according to the first deputy governor of the Russian central bank Vladimir Chistyukhin.
In total, 557 banks and companies have established connections with the system, including 159 foreign ones. Aside from these figures, little information is available. The Russian central bank does not communicate volumes.
Quite the opposite of its Chinese counterpart – CIPS (China International Payment System) – which does not hold back. China’s international payment system has 1,484 participating banks, including 139 directly, located in 113 countries and regions around the world.
In 2023, CIPS facilitated transactions of 123,000 billion yuan. That’s the equivalent of $17.2 trillion.
Compare with the SWIFT network whose annual transaction volume is around 150,000 billions of dollars. More than 11,000 financial institutions in more than 200 countries and regions use SWIFT.
We do know, however, that participants who interact directly with the Russian SFPS pay a fixed commission of RUB 0.8-1.0 (less than $0.02) per message.
The Minister of Foreign Affairs declared this Thursday that “Russia’s ambition is clear: to eradicate any dependence on financial, banking and logistical mechanisms controlled or influenced by our Western colleagues” :
We are still waiting for the Russian authorities to officially adopt bitcoin… What could be better than a store of value as well as an uncensorable international payment system.
In December, Mr. Putin welcomed the fact that international transactions in national currencies were increasingly replacing the dollar, going so far as to qualify the Western financial system “technologically obsolete”.
The Russian president mentioned blockchain and central bank digital currencies as technologies to replace the SWIFT network as well as the dollar:
“When it comes to international transactions, we are increasingly converting to advanced solutions, including those involving blockchain and CBDCs. »
Since CBDCs do not work with a blockchain, was this a nod to bitcoin? Does the Russian Tsar understand bitcoin?
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