Horse movement: in Russia, they decided to ban SWIFT, from which they had already been disconnected

Currently, most of the large banks of the Russian Federation are under sanctions, and therefore cannot use SWIFT anyway.

In Russia, they decided to ban financial institutions from using the SWIFT international data system for money transfers , from which most Russian banks were already disconnected as part of Western sanctions. The relevant order was issued by the Central Bank of Russia .

The decision will enter into force on October 1. From now on, the country’s banks will be obliged to use only Russian services and only Russian financial infrastructure for the transfer of financial information when transferring funds within the territory of Russia.

According to the Central Bank of the Russian Federation, this will ensure “reliability, continuity and security” of the exchange of financial information during monetary transactions.

SWIFT system in Russia

After the start of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, the West introduced several packages of sanctions against the Russian Federation, among which was the disconnection of Russian banks from the SWIFT global information system for bank payments.

Disconnection of the Russian banking system from SWIFT took place in several stages, the last time – in February . Currently, almost all major Russian banks are disconnected from the system. Only small, mainly regional financial institutions remain in the system.

After the annexation of Crimea and the introduction of the first sanctions, Russia began to create its analogue of SWIFT for domestic use, apparently in preparation for a new wave of sanctions after the planned new invasion of Ukraine. In 2022, the Russians began to use the internal analogue of SWIFT for external relations, in particular with Iran .

(C)UNIAN 2023