VTB is looking for alternatives in the event that Russian banks are shut out of the SWIFT international banking transactions system, the head of the Russian state bank, Andrei Kostin told reporters.

In September the European Parliament urged the European Union and its member countries to not lift sanctions against Russia if Moscow fails to comply with set conditions to de-escalate the Ukrainian crisis, and to be prepared to impose new restrictions, including cutting Russia off from SWIFT. Officials in the United States have also called for Russia to be shut out of SWIFT. However, SWIFT has said that it does not intend to shut Russia out of its services.

"Of course we're working with the Central Bank and amongst ourselves. There is an alternative - we can use the system of the Central Bank, which already exists, or we could create our own - we're holding negotiations with Sberbank. This is the biggest partner, taking into account its systems," Kostin said.

"The Central Bank's system already exists, it would be possible to switch to it as soon as tomorrow, but it has one drawback - it's expensive, several times more expensive than payments through SWIFT. If we create our own system at the bank, which is absolutely not difficult and we're moving toward this, it will be cheaper. And then it will already be possible to hold negotiations with the Central Bank. In principle, there is no problem with internal settlements in Russia," Kostin said.

He acknowledged that the possible shutoff of banks from SWIFT would create a problem with international settlements and there is currently no clear solution for it.

"There are, of course, other means of conducting settlements, but they are all obsolete, laborious, so there is no simple alternative, but we are also working on several options, in principle they exist," Kostin said.