The Central Bank has created a separate department for organizing international payments

The Bank of RUSSIA announced the creation of a new structural subdivision - the department for organizing international settlements. This is stated on the bank's website.

The statement said that the new department will deal with "issues that have become particularly relevant in the context of sanctions."

“Among them is the development of correspondent relations between Russian banks and counterparties from friendly countries, the transition to settlements in national currencies, as well as the expansion of opportunities for cross-border transactions,” the report says.

The department will be headed by Mikhail Kovrigin. Previously, he headed the department of strategic development of the financial market.

In addition, the Bank of Russia announced the creation of a Department for Cooperation with International Organizations on the basis of the Department for International Cooperation. The Department of International Cooperation will be abolished on September 1 this year.

Earlier, Russian banks that did not fall under the sanctions complained about the shutdown of their correspondent accounts in Western credit institutions. In particular, German Deutsche Bank and Austrian Raiffeisenbank International stopped cooperation with Russian banks. Also, banks cooperating with American Citi and JPMorgan had problems.

Of the five largest Russian banks, sanctions restrictions on transfers in dollars do not apply only against two - Gazprombank and Rosselkhozbank.

At the same time, Rosselkhozbank is disconnected from the international SWIFT system. However, Rosselkhozbank itself says that the company continues to make foreign currency transfers abroad, since the bank has established "direct correspondent relations with leading foreign banks in major foreign currencies."