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“Sberbank offers its corporate clients a convenient way of carrying out settlements in rupees and roubles. Sberbank has now become the main channel for such payments on Russian import operations, with volumes up by seven times last year compared to 2022. More and more companies are taking advantage of it, recognising the attractions of this means of payment,” Anatoly Popov, deputy chairman of the executive board of Sberbank, said exclusively to ET.
In July 2022, the RBI said that it would put in place an additional arrangement for invoicing, payment and settlement of exports and imports in rupees. The step, taken in the aftermath of the Ukraine war, was aimed at supporting the increasing interest of global trading in rupees, the central bank said.
India’s oil purchases from Russia jumped after the war as New Delhi purchased discounted crude. The share of Russian oil in India’s total imports rose to 35% in 2023-24 from 23% in the previous year, according to energy cargo tracker Vortexa.
While rupee-rouble trades have faced significant hurdles over the past year — with reports saying such transactions had either stalled or turned towards other currency pairs — Popov said that more and more Russian importers were looking towards goods and services from India.
“We support this interest, because redressing the bilateral trade balance, which is in deficit for India, contributes to the harmonious development of our trade and economic relations. Indian companies produce quite a lot of competitive goods, and we are drawing the attention of our Russian clients to supply opportunities in India,” he said.In April-October, India’s trade deficit with Russia was at $33.56 billion, official data showed.Listing out specific areas in which foreign trade was being encouraged, Popov said Sberbank had engaged in 37 Indian business missions involving 2,500 companies on both sides from sectors such as food, textiles, pharmaceuticals, building materials, auto parts, specialised vehicles, sports goods equipment and packaging.
“Sberbank is ready to finance industrial companies seeking to set up production facilities in India… our clients here are importers and exporters who work with Russia, as well as legal entities fully or partly owned by Russian companies and individuals, including, of course, joint ventures,” he said.
Following the establishment of an IT unit in Bengaluru last year, Sberbank aims to step up recruitment of Indian IT specialists to develop the Russian bank’s technology profile, Popov said, adding that the lender would scale up the hub in the southern state this year.
Speaking on improving efficiency of doing business here, Popov said Sberbank had last year launched a new platform for automated processing of payments by legal entities to India.
It aims to enable quicker payments for firms, with funds arriving in counterparty accounts within two hours.
“In 2024, the project will be scaled up to a larger volume of payments and expanded to cover operations by private individuals. More specifically, we are already offering money transfers from Sberbank to accounts in India via our standard smartphone app,” he said.
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