Iranian banks on way to join Russian Mir network; official
“Iran is considering the protocol to connect to Russian Mir network,” the Director General for Europe-U.S. Office of Iran's Trade Promotion Organization of Iran Behrouz Olfat told ILNA.
Speaking to ILNA news agency, the Iranian official said that during the sanctions, Iran's banking relations with Russia were better compared to other countries in the world.
“For this reason, the Central Bank of Iran and other banks are pursuing the connection of Iranian bank cards to the Russian banking network.”
He added that one way is to connect Iranian bank cards to Russia's Mir network, which can greatly facilitate financial exchanges, especially in the tourism industry.
Mir is a national payment system established by the Central Bank of Russia by the law adopted on May 1, 2017. It is currently accepted mostly by Russia-based companies, such as Aeroflot or Russian Railways, though it is gradually becoming popular among foreign companies with Russian operations.
Referring to the Russian financial messenger network, known as Russian SWIFT, Behrouz Olfat confirmed that connecting to Russian SWIFT is actually a protocol that defines certain contracts; adding “Therefore, connection to this mechanism has been on the agenda of commercial banks and Iran’s central bank, which, of course, has not been finalized yet.”
According to the Central Bank's Monetary and Banking Research Institute, the Russian president's assistant has announced the connection of Iran's electronic financial messaging system to the Russian financial messaging network to eliminate the effects of sanctions on trade between the two countries and banking cooperation.
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