MNA – Governor of Central Bank of Iran, Abdolnaser Hemmati, said Wed. that the country is making efforts to further strengthen trade transactions via national currencies, and render SWIFT practically useless.

He made the remarks on the sidelines of a cabinet meeting on Wednesday, adding that the US’ sanctions regime has helped remove dollar from trade transactions between various countries.

“Our recent talks with officials from Turkey and Russia centered around ditching dollar and bypassing SWIFT in our trade transactions,” he said.

“Accordingly, we are moving toward using alternative payment systems and conducting our business through national currencies,” he added.

Noting that at the moment, a major part of Iran’s transactions with Russia, Turkey and Iraq is done via the use of national currencies, the CBI governor said “we made a proposal to the Russian side for using an alternative payment system with the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) member states now that Iran is a member, too, and the Russian president welcomed the proposal.”

“New conditions will be formed in the banking transactions of regional countries,” Hemmati promised.