India’s State Bank Opening Rupee Accounts for Trade With Russia
A customer uses an automated teller machine at a State Bank of India Ltd. branch in Bengaluru, India.
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State Bank of India, the country’s largest lender, is opening special rupee accounts to handle Russia-related trade settlements in the local currency but is not the main bank for such business.
SBI is “making necessary arrangements and processing requests received from various banks, including Russian banks,” following guidelines laid out by the Reserve Bank of India, it said in a statement. The banking regulator had allowed Indian banks in July to open special rupee vostro accounts with lenders of other countries to settle overseas trades in the Indian currency.