The Reserve Bank of India and Russia's central bank are designing a settlement mechanism to facilitate bilateral trade using central bank digital currencies. Sberbank CEO Herman Gref stated the system will speed up cross-border payments and lower the dependence of both countries on the SWIFT financial network.

Sberbank is providing technical assistance to the central banks to help them reach a target of $100 billion in bilateral trade by 2030. India currently settles most of its Russian oil imports in rupees, and the digital currency initiative aims to increase the efficiency of these trade settlements.