Iran is considering joining Russia’s financial messaging system to bypass the Swift interbank system, after a number of Russian banks were cut off from the international payment messaging platform as part of western sanctions imposed on Moscow following its invasion of Ukraine. Russia’s Financial Message Transfer System (SPFS) was created to counter the risks of a disconnection of Russian banks from Swift, and talks are now under way to integrate Iran into the system, Moscow state-run news agency RIA Novosti reported on Thursday. Iran was blocked from Swift in 2012 as part of measures aimed at containing its nuclear programme. “We are making efforts in this direction (connecting Iranian banks to the SPFS) [for] the future,” Kazem Jalali, Iran’s ambassador to Russia, was quoted by the agency as saying. On February 26, the US, along with the European Commission, France, Germany, Italy, the UK and Canada, said they would bar certain Russian lenders from the Swift payments network to “ensure that these banks are disconnected from the international financial system and to harm their ability to operate globally”.