4 ms·

Isn't that what blocking them on SWIFT actually is? Or do they have another way?

Slartie 5y ago
No. Swift is "just" a messaging system. No money is transferred over it. Blocking Swift access makes it very inconvenient for banks to perform international settlement, because banks today rely on automated Swift messages to coordinate such transfers. However, even before Swift, international transfers were possible: by phone or telex. The banks have to find other ways to communicate, which isn't easy in practice, but not impossible. The fact that Russia has its own Swift competitor, to which some international banks might switch over time, would probably help with that. But by freezing bank accounts at the Fed, the actual settlements - the events at which money actually changes hands - could be prevented in the first place, no matter the way in which banks agreed over those settlements. Switching back to good old telex (or another financial communication network) wouldn't help in such a scenario. Banks would have to fall back to exchanging big suitcases of dollar bills, which obviously wouldn't practically work. Because no bank would survive this, they would immediately cooperate when confronted with such a threat and freeze any Russian-held funds, even if those funds weren't actually held in USD in the first place and thus would theoretically be unaffected by the Fed account freeze.
- lxgr 5y ago
  Yep – I suspect that when people say "block them from SWIFT", they really do mean "put them on international embargo lists and/or block anybody violating these at the various currency's settlement layers". But as a short-term measure, revoking SWIFT access is probably also somewhat effective. As you say, setting up alternatives is not impossible, but not easy either.
- krick 5y ago
  > Swift is "just" a messaging system. No money is transferred over it. I don't really understand this distinction. But before I can ask a question, there are some points about my understanding of how payments work, so that you can verify me: 1. All payments, no matter which payment system, can be performed only between 2 bank accounts. In order to send or receive money I must have an account in a bank. 2. A bank is pretty much defined by regulations it must follow. Following these regulations gives a bank some amount of trust/authority to say that a given person/entity has that much money within this bank. This money don't necessarily have to be backed by anything, so, ultimately, "it's just a number". 3. All transfers in a given currency are directly or indirectly performed via central bank that emits this currency (or FRS in case of USD). This is the ultimate top-level ledger for transfers in this currency. 4. So, ultimately to transfer non-physical assets (i.e. fiat money) 2 authorities for a given currency (i.e. central banks, or banks that follow CB regulations) must communicate one to another that a given number is deducted from account X and added to an account Y. There's nothing more. So, if money is just a number, "transferring" it is just a message. So why exactly SWIFT is a messaging system that doesn't transfer money, and how money is transferred, then? And what (in general terms) even are these messages SWIFT is needed for, that aren't money transfers?
  - Slartie 5y ago
    If someone with an account at bank A transfers some funds to someone at bank B, this transfer can occur by bank A decreasing a number and bank B increasing it. That's "just a message". However, it also is only part of the story. The only reason why banks A and B are able to offer this nice service of increasing some number here and decreasing some other number there is that both of them have an account at a central bank, over which they can eventually settle this transfer (together with a lot of other transfers, of course) amongst each other. Otherwise, bank B would suddenly be in debt with bank A, which is a situation that both of them can only tolerate for a very limited amount of time (and money). That's why I consider the capability to settle the individual transfers to be more important than the capability to negotiate these transfers, and the time of settlement to be the actual time at which wealth is transferred. Before that moment, the transfer is effectively incomplete, which usually doesn't matter much for smaller sums of money, but in case of large amounts that introduce large imbalances between banks you can be pretty sure the banks will want to settle among each other first before the recipient gets full access to the transferred money. However, all of this is based on the assumption that Swift is used for inter-bank communication as in "non-central-bank to non-central-bank". I always assumed that central banks would have their own communication channels with the non-central-banks and would not have to use some intermediary like Swift, as they themselves are a central entity able to standardize message formats and such.

No. Swift is "just" a messaging system. No money is transferred over it. Blocking Swift access makes it very inconvenient for banks to perform international settlement, because banks today rely on automated Swift messages to coordinate such transfers. However, even before Swift, international transfers were possible: by phone or telex. The banks have to find other ways to communicate, which isn't easy in practice, but not impossible. The fact that Russia has its own Swift competitor, to which some international banks might switch over time, would probably help with that. But by freezing bank accounts at the Fed, the actual settlements - the events at which money actually changes hands - could be prevented in the first place, no matter the way in which banks agreed over those settlements. Switching back to good old telex (or another financial communication network) wouldn't help in such a scenario. Banks would have to fall back to exchanging big suitcases of dollar bills, which obviously wouldn't practically work. Because no bank would survive this, they would immediately cooperate when confronted with such a threat and freeze any Russian-held funds, even if those funds weren't actually held in USD in the first place and thus would theoretically be unaffected by the Fed account freeze.

lxgr 5y ago
Yep – I suspect that when people say "block them from SWIFT", they really do mean "put them on international embargo lists and/or block anybody violating these at the various currency's settlement layers". But as a short-term measure, revoking SWIFT access is probably also somewhat effective. As you say, setting up alternatives is not impossible, but not easy either.
krick 5y ago
> Swift is "just" a messaging system. No money is transferred over it. I don't really understand this distinction. But before I can ask a question, there are some points about my understanding of how payments work, so that you can verify me: 1. All payments, no matter which payment system, can be performed only between 2 bank accounts. In order to send or receive money I must have an account in a bank. 2. A bank is pretty much defined by regulations it must follow. Following these regulations gives a bank some amount of trust/authority to say that a given person/entity has that much money within this bank. This money don't necessarily have to be backed by anything, so, ultimately, "it's just a number". 3. All transfers in a given currency are directly or indirectly performed via central bank that emits this currency (or FRS in case of USD). This is the ultimate top-level ledger for transfers in this currency. 4. So, ultimately to transfer non-physical assets (i.e. fiat money) 2 authorities for a given currency (i.e. central banks, or banks that follow CB regulations) must communicate one to another that a given number is deducted from account X and added to an account Y. There's nothing more. So, if money is just a number, "transferring" it is just a message. So why exactly SWIFT is a messaging system that doesn't transfer money, and how money is transferred, then? And what (in general terms) even are these messages SWIFT is needed for, that aren't money transfers?
- Slartie 5y ago
  If someone with an account at bank A transfers some funds to someone at bank B, this transfer can occur by bank A decreasing a number and bank B increasing it. That's "just a message". However, it also is only part of the story. The only reason why banks A and B are able to offer this nice service of increasing some number here and decreasing some other number there is that both of them have an account at a central bank, over which they can eventually settle this transfer (together with a lot of other transfers, of course) amongst each other. Otherwise, bank B would suddenly be in debt with bank A, which is a situation that both of them can only tolerate for a very limited amount of time (and money). That's why I consider the capability to settle the individual transfers to be more important than the capability to negotiate these transfers, and the time of settlement to be the actual time at which wealth is transferred. Before that moment, the transfer is effectively incomplete, which usually doesn't matter much for smaller sums of money, but in case of large amounts that introduce large imbalances between banks you can be pretty sure the banks will want to settle among each other first before the recipient gets full access to the transferred money. However, all of this is based on the assumption that Swift is used for inter-bank communication as in "non-central-bank to non-central-bank". I always assumed that central banks would have their own communication channels with the non-central-banks and would not have to use some intermediary like Swift, as they themselves are a central entity able to standardize message formats and such.