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A quick breakdown of what SWIFT is and why it matters

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Re: A quick breakdown of what SWIFT is and why it matters

#441

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So it's all trust based? We have to trust that all the governments of the world, who pinky promised to follow the rules, aren't secretly cheating internally and reporting false numbers to everyone else?

Yes, everything meaningful in society is trust based. I really hope crypto maximalists have made it this deep into the thread.

You're responding to a bitcoin maximalist my friend ;)

Re: A quick breakdown of what SWIFT is and why it matters

#442
post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Putin's now threatening Finland and Sweden should they dare join NATO do you have a link i can read up on? I would imagine everyone is running to the safety of NATO now and i can totally see Putin saying "if you try then you're next". > ...then it's basically WW3. If that's what it takes to get rid of this maniac then so be it but the consequences for everyone will be severe. "severe" would be the mildest term poss…

It was on the Guardian news feed, can't find it again but here's another link https://www.newsweek.com/russia-threatens-finland-sweden-nat... Sweden and Finland probably don't feel the need to join Nato but the threat that was made is enough to put EU on edge. Scandinavia is much "closer" than Ukraine. Severe indeed.

They literally state that every few months. Lavrov just said it in December.

Re: A quick breakdown of what SWIFT is and why it matters

#443
It was always hard for me to understand exactly what SWIFT is. From what I could get, it’s a bunch of protocols that were standardized in order for banks to communicate between them. When you buy something in thailand with your apple card, barclay’s debit your account, talks to the feds, the feds talks to the BIS or some bank in thailand or some bank that might be able to talk to thailand, and so on. I think swift is the protocol each bank and central bank use to communicate.

If it is so, I’m not sure how you can cut swift from a country. It doesn’t sound like a centralized thing.

Re: A quick breakdown of what SWIFT is and why it matters

#444

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hitler didn't have nukes and super-sonic missiles -- you cant do to Russia what you would want to do to Hitler.. at least not without a very heavy price..

And when Putin threatens nuclear first strike unless the west removes sanctions, or abandons the baltic republics, what next? At some point you have to just call their bluff. Earlier is better than later. Putin himself knows that he'll be the first casualty in nuclear war, and I doubt very much that Putin's deputies would go along with a plan that results in the annihilation of the Russian people. He's playing a high…

What does 'call his bluff' translate to in this context? Not take the threat of a nuclear war seriously and engage with Russia militarily anyways as-if the threat didn't exist?

Re: A quick breakdown of what SWIFT is and why it matters

#445

CEO and co-founder of Routefusion here, a cross-border bank to bank payment API. We use the SWIFT network regularly. I can 100% confirm that all money in the world is just literally numbers, and it is balanced by the different federal reserve systems around the world to ensure no one can "create" money without notifying everyone. I guess if I was super cool I would do an AMA because this is the only thread that is re…

I thought swift was just a protocol that banks used to talk to one another. If so how can it be used to cut russia? I’m guessing I’m missing a part where it is some centralized server somewhere?

Re: A quick breakdown of what SWIFT is and why it matters

#446

CEO and co-founder of Routefusion here, a cross-border bank to bank payment API. We use the SWIFT network regularly. I can 100% confirm that all money in the world is just literally numbers, and it is balanced by the different federal reserve systems around the world to ensure no one can "create" money without notifying everyone. I guess if I was super cool I would do an AMA because this is the only thread that is re…

>I can 100% confirm that all money in the world is just literally numbers, and it is balanced by the different federal reserve systems around the world to ensure no one can "create" money without notifying everyone. How does the system guarantee that nobody's creating money without notifying everyone? Furthermore, does the system guarantee that the central banks of each country are correctly adjusting their books in…

The system can’t do that. As a matter of fact I know someone who works for a French bank, and they fucked up and created a bunch of money. They had to work overnight with a bunch of accountants going through the books to make sure they reverted everything.

EDIT: apparently they use some old XML protocol, where twice a day a correspondant bank send them a list of accounts to debit or credit. They didn’t send something once, so my friend’s bank just replayed the previous settlement list.

Re: A quick breakdown of what SWIFT is and why it matters

#447
post #419

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be more specific, central banks are allowed to create money. Their liability is /dev/null. It's how they added trillions to their balance sheet during COVID.

Not really their liability is basically the present value of the future which is indeterminate, not null. If the future pain is greater than the present value, or billions printed, then they printed too much, otherwise it was worth it. You can’t really know for sure if it’s worth it now though.

I think what he means is that they can literally credit an account with new money in their database and it would work.

Re: A quick breakdown of what SWIFT is and why it matters

#448

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So it's all trust based? We have to trust that all the governments of the world, who pinky promised to follow the rules, aren't secretly cheating internally and reporting false numbers to everyone else?

Yes, everything meaningful in society is trust based. I really hope crypto maximalists have made it this deep into the thread.

Not sure what you mean, but I think that’s why crypto is so interesting: you have this public ledger that is auditable and where safety is maintained by consensus.

Re: A quick breakdown of what SWIFT is and why it matters

#449
post #447

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really their liability is basically the present value of the future which is indeterminate, not null. If the future pain is greater than the present value, or billions printed, then they printed too much, otherwise it was worth it. You can’t really know for sure if it’s worth it now though.

I think what he means is that they can literally credit an account with new money in their database and it would work.

Yes but my point is that the liability and asset paradigm described still will hold.

It’s simply that the liabilities are held by people who aren’t born or are obsfucated to the point that people don’t realize they are holding them. Inflation is one example

Re: A quick breakdown of what SWIFT is and why it matters

#450

I have always wondered, what combination of manual vs. automatic processes are happening when one makes a bank wire (actual wire transfers, not ACH)? Because whenever I have done wires, in addition to the bank/IBAN/account numbers, there are all these manual fields like "for further credit to" etc. that are clearly having to be interpreted by someone. And very often errors come up and the funds are held or in limbo o…

To my recollection it’s manual and yes that’s why it’s expensive. Imagine it gets added to a queue, then daily via swift, the banks settle with each other. The queue has a bunch of different stuff and is a net single transfer between bank A and B depending on who owes who today. The manual part confirms that it was added to the queue which allows them the comfort of giving you access to the cash immediately. I think the fed insures these transactions and requires immediate availability of funds.
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