Russia Develops Secure Alternative to SWIFT for Global Banking

Bell Integrator’s new platform enables safe cross-border financial messaging, potentially rivaling the global SWIFT system.

Russian tech firm Bell Integrator has unveiled a platform designed to facilitate secure communication between domestic and international financial institutions, according to a report by CNews.

The platform functions as an alternative to the SWIFT system, which has become inaccessible to Russian banks. It offers service bureau capabilities to respondent banks via remote banking service (RBS) tools for credit organizations, and thus full data protection throughout the exchange process is ensured.

Any bank acting as an agent for the Bank of Russia’s Financial Messaging System can integrate the platform and begin offering secure financial data transmission services to clients and partner institutions.

Bell Integrator’s platform supports cloud-based digital signatures, and that warrants the legal integrity of documents is protected from tampering. It’s compatible with SWIFT FIN formats (MT, MX) for international message exchange and uses advanced encryption and multi-factor authentication for every transaction. Stored data is backed up on dedicated infrastructure, with robust archiving capabilities.

The system is under constant development to improve security, performance, and scalability. CEO Andrey Ezrokhi claims the platform meets 99% of client requirements and could one day replace SWIFT in Russia or even compete with it globally.