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- Russia's Sberbank says it is processing transactions with India smoothly, despite Western sanctions.
- Sanctions prevent Sberbank from using US dollars, euros, and the SWIFT network.
- But Sberbank is now processing transactions for Russia-India trade in rubles and rupees efficiently.
Sberbank — Russia's largest lender — has no problems processing payments with India, a top executive told Reuters on Tuesday.
"Sberbank is a full participant in all Indian payment and interbank systems," Anatoly Popov, Sberbank's deputy CEO, told Reuters. "There are no restrictions on its operations."
State-controlled Sberbank has been sanctioned by the US and the European Commission. It cannot process transactions in the US dollar, the euro, and via the SWIFT bank messaging network.
But Sberbank — which processes up to 70% of Russian exports to India — has pivoted to transactions in rubles and rupees for its trade with India. Popov told Reuters that nine out of 10 transactions involving these currencies take just a few hours to complete.
This is in contrast with transactions that involve Chinese banks, who are so spooked by US secondary sanctions that many of the larger banks have stopped processing payments with Russia.
Popov told the news agency that business between India and Russia boomed in 2022 following sweeping sanctions over Moscow's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The South Asian country became an "alternative" market for Russia.
Reuters reported that Sberbank boosted its presence in India, expanding its staff count by 150% this year.
While India has become a top buyer of Russian oil, there are fewer Indian products Russia needs.
Last year, Russia acknowledged there were problems with billions of Indian rupees it had made from exports to India, which it needed to con. The amount has fallen since as Russian firms have managed to use the money to pay Indian exporters, Reuters reported last month.