After the Russian invasion of Ukraine in late February, a huge debate sprang up about the impact of sanctions on the Russian banking system. The debate started around blocking Russian banks access to the Swift financial network which, it was hoped, would effectively stop the use of roughly $630bn of foreign reserves.
Swift is not a payments system — it’s a messaging system. It brings together a co-operative network of over 11,000 financial institutions across more than 200 countries, so that global trade can transact and settle seamlessly with trust through their secure network. If a bank is kicked out of that network, then it loses access to global trade.
