What is SWIFT and why it's being called the 'nuclear' option for Russian sanctions
ABC News
As Western allies levy increasingly harsher economic sanctions against Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, the latest target involves Russia's access to SWIFT.
As Western allies levy increasingly harsher economic sanctions against Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, the latest target involves Russia's access to SWIFT.
An acronym for Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, SWIFT is a messaging system founded in 1973 that allows large financial institutions to send money to each other.
The Belgian-based cooperative is used by more than 11,000 banks and financial institutions in more than 200 countries and territories, including Russia. It handles 42 million messages a day, facilitating trillions of dollars worth of transactions. Russia accounted for 1.5% of SWIFT transactions in 2020, according to the Financial Times.
The White House announced Saturday evening that the U.S. will be disconnecting some Russian banks from SWIFT in partnership with the European Commission, France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom and Canada and are "imposing restrictive measures that will prevent the Russian Central Bank from deploying its international reserves in ways that undermine the impact of our sanctions."
