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SWIFT in Russia – Paving the way for future growth

SWIFT held its first Business Forum in Moscow.

Published on 31 May 2010
In March, SWIFT held its first Business Forum in Moscow. The forum brought over 160 industry leaders together to discuss Moscow’s bright future in the financial industry and how SWIFT can help them realise their goal to transform Moscow into an international financial centre.


SWIFT also celebrated the opening of its Moscow office and the 20th anniversary of SWIFT in Russia.

Speakers at the Business Forum explored a range of topics related to the infrastructure required to support Moscow’s transformation into an international financial centre. The need to improve the functioning of market infrastructures and the vital importance of cross-border co-operation by these institutions in both the securities and payments markets was covered in depth.

During the opening plenary, SWIFT CEO Lázaro Campos stated “the key ingredients of SWIFT’s contribution are the predictability with regards to development and support of standards, and the resilience, security and availability of the communication platform.”
During the first panel of the business forum, panellists explored the role of standardisation and international best practices in reassuring global market participants of the safe, secure and cost-effective state of Moscow’s infrastructure, in order to further attract capital flows and foreign investments.

“The Russian government has decided to transform Moscow into an international financial centre by 2020. This implies embracing international market practices and standards, it implies the deployment of a robust market infrastructure, it requires significant legislative and regulatory changes, it requires a convertible currency. And those are just the headlines. Talk about an ambitious objective. That is why
we need to be here more than ever before. We must be part of the transformation directly. Our Russian community needs strong partners in their journey.” said Campos.

The second panel on market infrastructures concluded that Russia needs to start looking outwards if it wants to increase its influence in the international financial world.

Moderator, Natalia Sidorova, head of Securities Services at ING Bank, stated “If you want to attract foreign investments and listing of foreign corporation on the Moscow Stock Exchange, you need to work on the attractiveness of the market.”

“The opening of a SWIFT office in Russia will bring us closer to our customers and enable us to give the Russian financial community a permanent point of reference for SWIFT in their market.”
Alain Raes, Chief Executive EMEA
In the afternoon, a special interest session was organised in cooperation with the Central Bank of Russia focusing on the latest development of the Russian Real Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) system. Building on the morning debate “Transforming Moscow into an international financial centre: what will it take?” the participants discussed the needs for the use of standardised financial messages in the Central Bank of Russia’s RTGS system (BESP).
A key success factor for international access to the local market is to ensure alignment of domestic standards with the ISO standards. In this respect, the Central Bank of Russia has developed a new payment instruction and a converter, allowing the usage of the SWIFT messaging platform for the BESP system. To ensure a streamlined approach in Russia, the Russian Payments Market Practice Group is preparing an updated version of the STP rules for Russia; SWIFT-RUR recommendations.
“With this extended team and the local presence, we will be able to focus better on strategic projects and get closer to our large customers in Russia. We want to ensure they get more return on the investment they made in their SWIFT infrastructure.”
Steven Palstermans, Head of the Moscow office


To demonstrate our commitment to the Russian market in particular; SWIFT has opened an office in Moscow and will be increasing the size of the SWIFT team there from one to six employees. The opening celebration at the residence of the Belgian Ambassador in Moscow coincided with 20 years in Russia for SWIFT.

We will continue to work in close cooperation with our local partner in Moscow, Alliance Factors and the national member and user group, Rosswift.

This partnership will continue to serve this region and deliver products, services and solutions that meet its requirements, enabling our users to increase operational efficiency, reduce costs and mitigate risk exposure.

Russia is a strategic market for SWIFT and integral part of our 2015 strategy; setting up new operations and going a step further in expanding the local SWIFT footprint in the Russian community will be key deliverables as we embark on this journey.