Iran not ruling out creating SWIFT analogue to bypass US sanctions

Baku. 1 October. REPORT.AZ/ Iran is not ruling out the possibility of establishing an alternative to the international payments provider SWIFT to circumvent the US sanctions, Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told RIA Novosti, Report informs.

"As we know Europeans are also working on SWIFT to see how SWIFT can continue working with Iran, or if a parallel [financial] messaging system is necessary or not ... It would be either ways - either SWIFT can continue working with Iran, or the parallel messaging system would be established for Iran. This is something that we are still working on," Araghchi said.

Notably, Germany's foreign minister Heiko Maas said in August that the EU needs to create an independent analogue of SWIFT in order to protect its companies from US sanctions against Iran.