Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, including cutting off a number of Russian banks from the SWIFT interbank payments system.SWIFT is the world’s main international payments network.
Here is more about what it does and why it matters:SWIFT, or the “Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication”, is a secure messaging system that facilitates rapid cross-border payments, making international trade flow smoothly.Banks which connect to the SWIFT system and establish relationships with other banks can use SWIFT messages to make payments.Kyiv curfew extended as Russian troops pound on Ukrainian capitalThe messages are secure so that payment instructions are typically honoured without question.
This allows banks to process high volumes of transactions at speed.It has become the principal mechanism for financing international trade.
In 2020, around 38 million SWIFT ‘FIN messages’ were sent each day over the SWIFT platform, according to its 2020 Annual Review.