ACU members agreed in a summit in the Iranian capital Tehran on Wednesday to launch their own banking messaging system within a month, according to a deputy governor of the Central Bank of Iran (CBI).

“The (ACU) countries decided to have a customized system for themselves considering that SWIFT is not available to all countries and given that it has its own costs,” said Mohsen Karimi, CBI’s deputy for international affairs.

Karimi said the messaging system will cover all demands for clearing monetary transactions among nine members of the ACU.

The move is in line with statements by ACU members in recent months suggesting they are eager to join regional and international efforts to reduce the weight of the US dollar in global trade, a process which has become known as de-dollarization.

Countries like India and Iran, who are key members of the ACU, have accelerated efforts to de-dollarize their foreign trade, especially since a war broke out in Ukraine in early 2022, leading to Russia’s exclusion from SWIFT.

CBI governor Mohammad Reza Farzin, who became ACU’s rotating chair on Wednesday, said the bloc will seek to admit new members and will diversify the basket of currencies it accepts for payment settlements to help the de-dollarization campaign.

Belarus and Mauritius applied for ACU membership during the Wednesday summit in Tehran where top bankers from non-member states like Russia were also present.

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“The main topics of this meeting are the strengthening of barter, and bilateral and multilateral monetary agreements,” Mohammadreza Farzin said on Sunday.

He explained that the 51st meeting of the ACU will be held in Tehran on May 23-25.

“The governors of the central banks of nine member states of this union have been invited. Of course, we have also invited some observer members,” he added.

Farzin reiterated that the main goal of the meeting is to strengthen barter transactions among member states, enable them to trade using their national and local currencies, and to follow up on bilateral and multilateral monetary agreements.

Iran has announced its decision to move away from the U.S. dollar and has acted on the decision in cooperation with other independent countries.

Earlier this month, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi ordered the CBI to lay the ground for conducting foreign trade transactions using Iran’s national currency rial.

Addressing an open session of the parliament on May 9, Farzin asserted that the forthcoming ACU meeting will accelerate the global trend of de-dollarization.

Asian Clearing Union (ACU) summit will be held on May 23-25 in Iran’s Central Bank to focus on de-dollarization, according to Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Iran (CBI) for international affairs Mohsen Karimi.

Karimi in his Monday remarks said that there is a great fortune for De-dollarization in the Asian Clearing Union (ACU) summit, the secretariat of the Union is in the Central Bank of Iran, and since last year at the 50th meeting of this union, it was approved that the Islamic Republic of Iran will host the 51st meeting of this union.

Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Iran (CBI) added that the new countries have also applied for membership in this Union, as saying that, members will decide regarding the acceptance of these countries’ membership at the new Summit in Tehran.

Nine main members of the Asian Exchange Union will attend the summit, and Russia, Belarus, Afghanistan and Islamic Development Bank officials will attend 51th Asian Clearing Union (ACU) summit.

Asian Clearing Union (ACU) is a payment arrangement whereby the participants settle payments for intra-regional transactions among the participating central banks on a net multilateral basis.

The main objectives of the clearing union are to facilitate payments among member countries for eligible transactions, thereby economizing on the use of foreign exchange reserves and transfer costs, as well as promoting trade and banking relations among the participating countries.

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