The Financial Times is reporting that the UK, which has been amongst the more bellicose supporters of Ukraine, proposed kicking Russia out of SWIFT.
That's a new level for sanctions.
It's reported that Germany indicated they would not support this move.
It would definitely require a lot, if not all countries, to agree to do this.
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You probably don't know what SWIFT is.
SWIFT is the international organization that transmits secure messages from one bank to another. Mostly, this is orders that funds be transferred from one account to another.
It's then the banks responsibility to actually do the transfer.
It's hard to tell how critical SWIFT is, but almost all international transactions go through it. So blocking Russia from using SWIFT would be tantamount to disabling every Russians credit card. Gee, that might get some attention.
On the other hand, it's also why Germany would be against it: if they can't pay Russia for natural gas, they won't have much to run their power plants.
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