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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

#71

Post by RustyBucket »

celticninja wrote: post #31
baybal2 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Russia already uses multiple alternative settlement systems with China, Iran, and few other buddies like Norko, and Belarus. > You then get fragmentation and SWIFT losing some of its "soft power". This already lost any power it had in 2014, because the threat of disconnection was wasted. An honestly, EU lost its face now to talk "soft power." Every foreign head of state going to meet EU bureaucrats will now look at t…

It's still an effective sanction because the Russian alternative is a half baked approach. It can only handle a fraction of the daily required transactions, only 40% of Russian banks are signed up to use it and it can only process payments during office hours.

Russia, I think, has 11 timezones. So essentially it is office hours entire day.

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

#72

Post by [deleted] »

abhishekjha wrote: post #33
espadrine wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If they're building a replacement, doesn't that also mean we should use "cut off SWIFT" now, rather than later when it'll be ineffective? The replacement is already functional. In fact, Russia is not the only one having built a replacement to protect against the risk that SWIFT would be sanctioned: Europe has done it too with Instex: https://instex-europe.com/about-us/ SWIFT is a private company; those sanctions ma…

India has UPI and Rupay which is getting adopted by other SEA countries. Nepal is as another addition.

[deleted]

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

#74

Post by stickfigure »

sega_sai wrote: post #50
dragonwriter wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> All these sanctions are a bit of the joke when you are dealing with an insane leader in a country without elections Russia has elections, but even having an unelected autocrat doesn't mean that governments are immune to popular opinion. Ask Louis XVI of France or, perhaps more relevantly here, Tsar Nicholas II of all the Russias.

I know that technically they have elections (I'm a Russian living abroad), they just count in a 'special way' so they get the result they want. And yes I agree popular uprisings is a possibility. But in the case of Germany in 1930-1940s that didn't quite work.

That's because Hitler kept winning. He militarized the Rhineland in 1936, the allies did nothing. He took over Austria in 1938, the allies did nothing. He occupied Czechoslovakia later the same year, the allies did nothing. With every win, Hitler's popularity increased at home. He's reported to have been quite surprised when the allies finally declared war after Poland.

We have a word for this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeasement

Neville Chamberlain negotiated with Hitler over handing Germany large swaths of Czech territory critical for border defense. The Czechs weren't invited to the conversation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_for_our_time

We know how that turned out.

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

#75

Post by CommanderData »

sega_sai wrote: post #37

All these sanctions are a bit of the joke when you are dealing with an insane leader in a country without elections and sitting on top of a pile of reserves. And the west is not doing one thing that could actually actually make a difference -- cutting oil and gas export because the west thinks it'll be too expensive for the west. I feel these sanctions are still more of signalling, than actually doing something usefu…

The sanctions are theatre and will be lifted in a year or so.

If the West really cared Swift would have happened long ago.

The reality is they do not care for Ukraine.

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

#76

Post by krisoft »

hamilyon2 wrote: post #42

Russian citizens like me will be hit hardest, as usual. Large institutions and wealthy individuals will find another ways to transfer money. Costs of goods and services will rise.

> Russian citizens like me will be hit hardest, as usual.

Not to sound disrespectful, but I think it's the Ukrainian citizens who perished or will perish who "will be hit hardest".

I know you have no personal choice in the matter, but still important to keep in mind the ongoing suffering.

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

#77

Post by rozab »

kgeist wrote: post #61
hamilyon2 wrote: post #42

Russian citizens like me will be hit hardest, as usual. Large institutions and wealthy individuals will find another ways to transfer money. Costs of goods and services will rise.

I have a VPS I bought at OVH to act as a VPN, does it mean I won't be able to access information freely on the Internet if SWIFT is cut (I use a Russian bank account)? Or maybe I can open a bank account in some neutral country?

Even mainstream VPNs like NordVPN will take privacycoins like Monero

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

#78

Post by ivraatiems »

hamilyon2 wrote: post #42

Russian citizens like me will be hit hardest, as usual. Large institutions and wealthy individuals will find another ways to transfer money. Costs of goods and services will rise.

I'm sorry that this is the case, but, I'm pretty sure that's the idea. At this point, your government is not acting with anyone's best interest in mind, including that of its citizens. It's up to the rest of the world to make it clear what the consequences are for that, in the hopes that if your leaders don't change their mind on their own, you'll do it for them.

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

#79

Post by espadrine »

kgeist wrote: post #61
hamilyon2 wrote: post #42

Russian citizens like me will be hit hardest, as usual. Large institutions and wealthy individuals will find another ways to transfer money. Costs of goods and services will rise.

I have a VPS I bought at OVH to act as a VPN, does it mean I won't be able to access information freely on the Internet if SWIFT is cut (I use a Russian bank account)? Or maybe I can open a bank account in some neutral country?

If you make card payments, SWIFT won’t be what cuts the renewal.

If you make transfers, it may be temporarily interrupted or slower while your bank shifts their integrations. They plausibly have either accounts at the ECB, or relations to a bank that does.

There may be KYC hurdles to opening a EUR account online.

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

#80

Post by s_dev »

nimbius wrote: post #44

quite a few commenters have pointed out SWIFT as a hand of soft power and i think its important to understand the twitter post doesnt mention an important fact: SWIFT was created in order that Europe may resist Kissingers increasingly capricious hand of soft power as it emerged as a lead sap in an increasingly arbitrary US foreign policy. 40 years ago the US had become effectively drunk on soft-power moves against st…

Nah -- Bill Browder seems to be a expert on this exact topic. He's saying to pull Russia from Swift. His experience suggests he is intimately familiar with the financial world and the consequences.

He's the genesis of the Magnitsky Act -- the one thing that actually scares Putin. I know this because Putin even said if Russia was removed from Swift he would consider it an act of war.

https://twitter.com/Billbrowder/status/1496799227082649603

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