The countries of the Group of Seven (G7 ), along with the European Union, are working on new restrictions on third-country banks that are said to help Russia circumvent sanctions. This was reported by Bloomberg agency with reference to its sources.
According to them, these measures will also be directed against financial institutions that use the Bank of Russia's financial message transmission system (SPFS), which replaced SWIFT. It is noted that the discussions on this topic are taking place on the eve of the June summit of the G-7 leaders, where tougher sanctions against the Russian Federation will be discussed.
Bloomberg recalls that the European Union is preparing a new package of anti-Russian restrictions, in which it also intends to ban its countries from using the SPFS. This system already works in 20 countries, including Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, China and Tajikistan. The agency points out that the EU expects to reach a consensus on the 14th package of sanctions by the G-7 meeting, but some European countries still do not agree with the initiative to completely ban SPFS and try to explain that such a step could “affects legitimate transactions and spoils relationships with third parties."
Bloomberg's interviewees noted that specific restrictions that could be adopted after the June summit in Italy are still being discussed, and that countries can individually take their own measures.
In 2014, the Bank of Russia put into test mode the system for the transmission of financial messages, which can transmit data in the SWIFT format, but does not depend on its channels. In 2017, the SPFS became fully operational, transmitting transaction messages in all currencies. Initially, SPFS was intended only for domestic Russian users, but by February 2022, more than 20 Belarusian banks, credit organizations from Armenia, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Cuba and other countries joined it.
In March this year, the Bank of Russia published a report, according to which at the end of 2023 the SPFS had 556 participants from 20 countries.
The United States administration may impose sanctions on Chinese companies and financial institutions over Beijing's alleged support for the Russian military-industrial complex.
This was announced by the first deputy secretary of state of the United States, Kurt Campbell.
„I think our main focus is on Chinese companies that systematically support Russia,” he said, when asked if Chinese executives and banks could be blacklisted.
„We are also closely monitoring financial institutions,”, Campbell added. According to him, “steps will be taken not only by the United States, but also by other countries dissatisfied with the support for the Russian Federation by the PRC.
The press secretary of the Chinese Embassy in Washington, Liu Penyu, told TASS earlier that the United States is “spreading disinformation that China is providing military support to Russia”. According to him, Beijing has “never supplied weapons to any of the parties in the conflict” in Ukraine, and the economic and commercial cooperation between the PRC and the Russian Federation “is not directed against a third country”.