"Over the last few weeks there has been a significant interest in the market from large Russian corporations to start using various products in renminbi and other Asian currencies and to set up accounts in Asian locations," Pavel Teplukhin, head of Deutsche Bank in Russia, told the Financial Times.High quality global journalism requires investment.

Andrei Kostin, chief executive of state bank VTB, said that expanding the use of non-dollar currencies was one of the bank's "main tasks".

"Given the extent of our bilateral trade with China, developing the use of settlements in roubles and yuan [renminbi] is a priority on the agenda, and so we are working on it now," he told Russia's President Vladimir Putin during a briefing. "Since May, we have been carrying out this work."