Weeks after the Indian government allowed businesses to pay for international trade in rupees, two major lenders have “joined hands” with Russian banks under the newly introduced framework, a senior Finance Ministry official said on Thursday.
"Few of the Russian banks are joining hands with UCO Bank and Yes Bank. It will be primarily rupee-basis trade or could be a rupee-ruble trade," the Indian official told reporters on condition of anonymity.
Once the process between the banks is finalized, the Reserve Bank of India will grant them approval to initiate trade under the new mechanism introduced by the Indian central bank on July 11.
The Finance Ministry hopes that rupee-based trade will curb the dependency on hard currency such as US dollars or euros, among others. Under this mechanism, all exports and imports may be denominated and invoiced in rupees.
Indian exporters also estimate that the move could boost exports to Russia to about $5 billion by March 2023, nearly double the figure from the last financial year.
Earlier, Russia’s Petersburg Social Commercial Bank told Sputnik that the bank opened a new correspondent account in rupees with a bank in India. It plans to provide trade settlements for Indian businesses from other parts of the world.