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CEO and co-founder of Routefusion here, a cross-border bank to bank payment API. We use the SWIFT network regularly. I can 100% confirm that all money in the

CEO and co-founder of Routefusion here, a cross-border bank to bank payment API. We use the SWIFT network regularly. I can 100% confirm that all money in the world is just literally numbers, and it is balanced by the different federal reserve systems around the world to ensure no one can "create" money without notifying everyone. I guess if I was super cool I would do an AMA because this is the only thread that is really my time to shine hahaha.

joelbondurant4 5y ago
periheli0n 5y ago
What would keep some entity that has its SWIFT access revoked from switching to China's CIPS or even crypto? Would it be merely an inconvenience, requiring the change of a few processes, or would it create hard problems?
- user432678 5y ago
  I would say, good luck trying to sell gas or oil for bitcoins if the buyer even doesn’t want to have a business with you.
- JulianMorrison 5y ago
  I'm guessing it depends on the kind of sanctions. If dealing with rogues makes you a rogue, internationally, then CIPS may shy away from it.
- daniel-grigg 5y ago
  In the short term, both. Longer term yes, many countries would migrate to other systems which mitigates the value of SWIFT. Fear of that happening is part of the reluctance to use it as a political weapon.
- elliekelly 5y ago
  The two systems aren’t mutually exclusive. You can be a SWIFT member or participant and also use CIPS or cryptocurrency, though I think switching to crypto for payments would create a ton of procedural issues for most financial institutions.
- lxgr 5y ago
  When people say "revoking somebody's SWIFT access", I think they really mean putting them on national or international sanction/embargo lists that prohibit them from doing any kind of business with them (in particular, sending payments in their name or for their benefit), rather than actually, technically removing their SWIFT network access. Since SWIFT is not the only, but certainly the largest financial/interbank messaging network, I suppose the effects are similar, but "disabling SWIFT" to me always sounds like an implementation detail.
  - jollybean 5y ago
    I don't believe this is accurate. I don't think anyone would arbitrarily just ban all trade like that. And if that's what they did intend, that's what they would say and the consequences are much bigger. It's kind of a 'de facto' ban however, in that, it's hard to pay people otherwise. I'm sure a Swiss bank or two could immediately broker transactions 'by hand' though, that would be a pretty easy way around things. That said, you could be right. If that's the case, I wish they would make it more clear.
    - native_samples 5y ago
      Yes. This whole thing is just once more revealing the cluelessness of our political classes. SWIFT is just a messaging system with verified identities, some schemas and a bit of business logic on the side. It exists because wire transfers predate the internet, not because it's clever or actually critical infrastructure. Disconnect Russian banks from SWIFT? OK, submit your SWIFT formatted messages to banks via this helpful REST API instead. The outcome is the same.
      - sealthedeal 5y ago
        It exists because banks need a way to know that money is coming to them, it more or less balances books. You are right, a Swiss bank could just call a Russian bank and say “hey we are sending you this money”, but A it would be a pain in the ass, and B, they could risk getting in trouble, but they are Swiss so they can do what they want hahaha.
- anonporridge 5y ago
  Or Russia's new SWIFT alternative that they stood up after the west threatened SWIFT censorship after they annexed Crimea? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPFS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPFS
  - rtsil 5y ago
    If what the link says is true, that alternative includes only 23 foreign banks, as opposed to over 11,000 for SWIFT.
    - anonporridge 5y ago
      Fair, but if the US pulls the trigger on SWIFT censorship, that may not be completely destructive, and will only incentivize further expansion of the SPFS network to make the SWIFT attack less powerful next time.
- sealthedeal 5y ago
  It would come down to people would not be able to send money to them, I.e. they would say you can’t send money to Russia anymore, and if an institution went around SWIFT to send money and they get audited they could get into a lot of trouble.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
kuprel 5y ago
Sounds like decentralized consensus in crypto world
- anonporridge 5y ago
  With significantly more cost, complexity, obscurity, and gatekeeping.
  - dannyw 5y ago
    The beauty of bitcoin is I can compile a open source program, and my own hardware will verify that all the rules of the blockchain have been followed, and no one has spent any funds that they don't have the crypto keys for. I've been banned from one bank. I have friends who are sex workers who are partially debunked (sex work is legal in Australia, but PayPal doesn't care). The truckers in Canada are also finding it out the hard way. Are these edge cases? Perhaps. But they seriously affect the lives of people. If millions of Russians suddenly find themselves without access to the international financial network, I have a feeling a lot less people will think "bitcoin has no value".
- baby 5y ago
  I wouldn't call this consensus, as there is no global view and "total ordering" of transactions. Different parties have different views of who owns what, and extremely partial views at that.
rocgf 5y ago
Well, since you semi-offered... :) Could you explain this to me like I am a complete moron? I understand that SWIFT allows for international payments, but I don't understand exactly how it differs from a normal bank account transfer within the same country.
- lxgr 5y ago
  When people say SWIFT, they usually mean "international payments via correspondent banking". SWIFT is just a messaging layer to enable that. Look into correspondent banking if you're curious how all of that works – SWIFT is just one (very popular) way correspondent banks can communicate with each other and/or look up paths to facilitate international payments for their account holders.
  - conductr 5y ago
    When I worked for JP Morgan 08-10, I used swift and after learning about it on college was very disappointed. It was just an email inbox where other banks/fi’s scanned in orders, trades, etc. think fax2email where the fax came over as a TIFF file. There was no metadata, ocr, or anything, I’d have to manually read the image file to get the account number dollar amounts etc to key in on a piece of proprietary custodian software. This meant there was also no way to parse the inbox. Looking for a specific transaction? Ask them when they sent it and read the hundreds of messages that came over within +/-5 minutes and hope they remembered the time right. I always wondered about the security behind it, because it seemed like anything that hit our inbox that was a tiff and have a recognizable letterhead got acted on, no confirmations, 9-10 digit amounts were moving around based on that alone. Also Not sure that I saw the whole system or just a piece.
  - baby 5y ago
    How does one look up a route? Is it a SWIFT centralized service? In that case, could it be what they want to cut from the Russian?
    - lxgr 5y ago
      Not too familiar with that process, but as far as I understand, these routes (i.e. correspondent banks per currency/country and their reachability over settlement networks) are called "Standing Settlement Instructions". SWIFT does seem to offer these as a service [1]. But just like the messaging layer, this can be done via other means. For example, here [2] is Citibank Poland declaring their reachability for various currency transfers. As for the messaging service itself, I believe that cutting off SWIFT SSI access would help in disrupting payment flows in the short term, but in the long term, sanction lists are the real enforcement mechanism. As others in this thread have already said, these are a very powerful indirect stick when implemented as "you must adhere to our embargo lists, or we will prohibit all of the banks in our jurisdiction to do any kind of business with you, whether for embargoed clients or others". [1] https://www.swift.com/our-solutions/compliance-and-shared-services/swiftref/standing-settlement-instructions https://www.swift.com/our-solutions/compliance-and-shared-se... [2] https://www.citibank.pl/poland/corporate/polish/files/list_of_correspondent_banks.pdf https://www.citibank.pl/poland/corporate/polish/files/list_o...
JacobThreeThree 5y ago
>I can 100% confirm that all money in the world is just literally numbers, and it is balanced by the different federal reserve systems around the world to ensure no one can "create" money without notifying everyone. How does the system guarantee that nobody's creating money without notifying everyone? Furthermore, does the system guarantee that the central banks of each country are correctly adjusting their books in consequence? Is it all just a trust-based system, or are there additional controls?
- lxgr 5y ago
  > How does the system guarantee that nobody's creating money without notifying everyone? Through a series of regulations regarding minimum liquidity/capital [1] and/or reserve [2] requirements. > Furthermore, does the system guarantee that the central banks of each country are correctly adjusting their books in consequence? By requiring them to periodically report on their assets and liabilities, checking for compliance with [1] and [2], and monitoring their reserve accounts. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basel_III https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basel_III [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reserve_requirement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reserve_requirement
  - anonporridge 5y ago
    So it's all trust based? We have to trust that all the governments of the world, who pinky promised to follow the rules, aren't secretly cheating internally and reporting false numbers to everyone else?
    - worik 5y ago
      Yes. Money means nothing without trust. I do not think we can have civilisation without trust
      - anonporridge 5y ago
        "The root problem with conventional currency is all the trust that's required to make it work. The central bank must be trusted not to debase the currency, but the history of fiat currencies is full of breaches of that trust." -- Satoshi Nakamoto
_448 5y ago
How does one connect to the SWIFT network? Say, someone wants to start a company for providing some financial service like fund transfer across borders, then connecting to SWIFT will be very helpful. I was always fascinated by how all this works and what does it take to directly use the SWIFT network. Any insights on this will be really helpful.
- mistrial9 5y ago
  help yourself to some legal accreditation in your actual jurisdiction, to start.
- lxgr 5y ago
  > How does one connect to the SWIFT network? You generally need to be a bank or regulated financial institution. SWIFT is just a messaging layer for correspondent banking. If you're not a bank, SWIFT access is about as useful as suddenly learning your country's president's cell phone number: Definitely cool, but the two of you would probably not have much to talk about.
- VBprogrammer 5y ago
  I used SWIFT messages as part of my first real job (finance rather than tech). The format itself is comically loose, ill defined and fugly by any reasonable measure. When something really screwed up you resorted to sending MT599 messages around, free format text messages. I believe it's all SWIFT over IP this century so probably not dissimilar to any other API you might use.
- sealthedeal 5y ago
  You can go online to swift and apply. Large corporates can actually be members. We access the SWIFT network through a myriad of different banking and financial institutions we have created partnerships with. I.e. if you go and create a neobank through a baas provider you will inadvertently get access to SWIFT, it won’t be direct but you have access. To get true access you have to go through and insane process and have a ton of controls and policies and create trust with the governing body of SWIFT.
  - 5y ago
melony 5y ago
Pricing for routefusion?
- sealthedeal 5y ago
  Hit me up, colton@routefusion :)
ta988 5y ago
You should do that AMA.
mi_lk 5y ago
what are the best books/resources to read about the system?
- sealthedeal 5y ago
  It is all so vague. It took me so long to get a decent understanding. I write about a lot of it here https://docs.routefusion.com/blog https://docs.routefusion.com/blog
mvkel 5y ago
Do you see blockchain tech eventually replacing these trusted systems with a trustless one?
- samstave 5y ago
  not until they can successfully, secretly, launder money and hide money in shell companies and other fraudulent activities that a very large portion of the money flow in the world relies on. Also. at a level above "money" what do the ultra wealthy (Rothschild, Rockefeller, etc) deal in as currency at their level. I believe they have another currency. These families have FAR greater wealth than Bezos and Zuck (Bill Gates is essentially family to the Rothschilds. through his father/grandfather)
Terry_Roll 5y ago
> I can 100% confirm that all money in the world is just literally numbers, and it is balanced by the different federal reserve systems around the world to ensure no one can "create" money without notifying everyone. So how does this stack up when the CIA are purportedly printing their own currency? Or are the CIA and others exploiting the lack of security measures built into cash? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superdollar#CIA https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superdollar#CIA My understanding of money creation aka FIAT currency is banks/lenders deposit a small % with the central bank and can then create circa 90%+ of money out of thin air when someone takes on a loan. https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/-/media/boe/files/quarterly-bulletin/2014/money-creation-in-the-modern-economy.pdf https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/-/media/boe/files/quarterly-... https://www.economicsnetwork.ac.uk/archive/starkey_banking#:~:text=However%2C%20the%20Bank%20of%20England%20recently%20issued%20a,of%20money%20creation%20%28McLeay%2C%20Radia%2C%20%26%20Thomas%2C%202014%29 https://www.economicsnetwork.ac.uk/archive/starkey_banking#:.... With this being the case, then borrowing money not only demonstrates banks have more intelligence on people in order to decide whether to lend money or not, but it also benefits some in society more than others when considering credit rating agencies. Edit: In other words, the amount of debt someone can take on is a sign of good behaviour and nothing more, a variation of monkeys being taught the concept of money and then scientists witnessing how monkeys traded their tokens, notably, females got cash for sex, males got cash for stuff the female wanted. Basic.
baby 5y ago
I thought swift was just a protocol that banks used to talk to one another. If so how can it be used to cut russia? I’m guessing I’m missing a part where it is some centralized server somewhere?
- sealthedeal 5y ago
  It’s just how banks tell one another money is coming to them. Without Swift money would just be showing up and no one would know wtf was going on.
  - baby 5y ago
    I'm not sure I understand, how does "money show up"? Do you mean that bank A doesn't have an account at bank Z, so they must take another route A -> B -> Z, and thus at some point bank B might credit bank Z account and bank A needs to tell that to bank Z?

joelbondurant4 5y ago

periheli0n 5y ago

What would keep some entity that has its SWIFT access revoked from switching to China's CIPS or even crypto? Would it be merely an inconvenience, requiring the change of a few processes, or would it create hard problems?

user432678 5y ago
I would say, good luck trying to sell gas or oil for bitcoins if the buyer even doesn’t want to have a business with you.
JulianMorrison 5y ago
I'm guessing it depends on the kind of sanctions. If dealing with rogues makes you a rogue, internationally, then CIPS may shy away from it.
daniel-grigg 5y ago
In the short term, both. Longer term yes, many countries would migrate to other systems which mitigates the value of SWIFT. Fear of that happening is part of the reluctance to use it as a political weapon.
elliekelly 5y ago
The two systems aren’t mutually exclusive. You can be a SWIFT member or participant and also use CIPS or cryptocurrency, though I think switching to crypto for payments would create a ton of procedural issues for most financial institutions.
lxgr 5y ago
When people say "revoking somebody's SWIFT access", I think they really mean putting them on national or international sanction/embargo lists that prohibit them from doing any kind of business with them (in particular, sending payments in their name or for their benefit), rather than actually, technically removing their SWIFT network access. Since SWIFT is not the only, but certainly the largest financial/interbank messaging network, I suppose the effects are similar, but "disabling SWIFT" to me always sounds like an implementation detail.
- jollybean 5y ago
  I don't believe this is accurate. I don't think anyone would arbitrarily just ban all trade like that. And if that's what they did intend, that's what they would say and the consequences are much bigger. It's kind of a 'de facto' ban however, in that, it's hard to pay people otherwise. I'm sure a Swiss bank or two could immediately broker transactions 'by hand' though, that would be a pretty easy way around things. That said, you could be right. If that's the case, I wish they would make it more clear.
  - native_samples 5y ago
    Yes. This whole thing is just once more revealing the cluelessness of our political classes. SWIFT is just a messaging system with verified identities, some schemas and a bit of business logic on the side. It exists because wire transfers predate the internet, not because it's clever or actually critical infrastructure. Disconnect Russian banks from SWIFT? OK, submit your SWIFT formatted messages to banks via this helpful REST API instead. The outcome is the same.
    - sealthedeal 5y ago
      It exists because banks need a way to know that money is coming to them, it more or less balances books. You are right, a Swiss bank could just call a Russian bank and say “hey we are sending you this money”, but A it would be a pain in the ass, and B, they could risk getting in trouble, but they are Swiss so they can do what they want hahaha.
anonporridge 5y ago
Or Russia's new SWIFT alternative that they stood up after the west threatened SWIFT censorship after they annexed Crimea? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPFS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPFS
- rtsil 5y ago
  If what the link says is true, that alternative includes only 23 foreign banks, as opposed to over 11,000 for SWIFT.
  - anonporridge 5y ago
    Fair, but if the US pulls the trigger on SWIFT censorship, that may not be completely destructive, and will only incentivize further expansion of the SPFS network to make the SWIFT attack less powerful next time.
sealthedeal 5y ago
It would come down to people would not be able to send money to them, I.e. they would say you can’t send money to Russia anymore, and if an institution went around SWIFT to send money and they get audited they could get into a lot of trouble.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

kuprel 5y ago

Sounds like decentralized consensus in crypto world

anonporridge 5y ago
With significantly more cost, complexity, obscurity, and gatekeeping.
- dannyw 5y ago
  The beauty of bitcoin is I can compile a open source program, and my own hardware will verify that all the rules of the blockchain have been followed, and no one has spent any funds that they don't have the crypto keys for. I've been banned from one bank. I have friends who are sex workers who are partially debunked (sex work is legal in Australia, but PayPal doesn't care). The truckers in Canada are also finding it out the hard way. Are these edge cases? Perhaps. But they seriously affect the lives of people. If millions of Russians suddenly find themselves without access to the international financial network, I have a feeling a lot less people will think "bitcoin has no value".
baby 5y ago
I wouldn't call this consensus, as there is no global view and "total ordering" of transactions. Different parties have different views of who owns what, and extremely partial views at that.

rocgf 5y ago

Well, since you semi-offered... :) Could you explain this to me like I am a complete moron? I understand that SWIFT allows for international payments, but I don't understand exactly how it differs from a normal bank account transfer within the same country.

lxgr 5y ago
When people say SWIFT, they usually mean "international payments via correspondent banking". SWIFT is just a messaging layer to enable that. Look into correspondent banking if you're curious how all of that works – SWIFT is just one (very popular) way correspondent banks can communicate with each other and/or look up paths to facilitate international payments for their account holders.
- conductr 5y ago
  When I worked for JP Morgan 08-10, I used swift and after learning about it on college was very disappointed. It was just an email inbox where other banks/fi’s scanned in orders, trades, etc. think fax2email where the fax came over as a TIFF file. There was no metadata, ocr, or anything, I’d have to manually read the image file to get the account number dollar amounts etc to key in on a piece of proprietary custodian software. This meant there was also no way to parse the inbox. Looking for a specific transaction? Ask them when they sent it and read the hundreds of messages that came over within +/-5 minutes and hope they remembered the time right. I always wondered about the security behind it, because it seemed like anything that hit our inbox that was a tiff and have a recognizable letterhead got acted on, no confirmations, 9-10 digit amounts were moving around based on that alone. Also Not sure that I saw the whole system or just a piece.
- baby 5y ago
  How does one look up a route? Is it a SWIFT centralized service? In that case, could it be what they want to cut from the Russian?
  - lxgr 5y ago
    Not too familiar with that process, but as far as I understand, these routes (i.e. correspondent banks per currency/country and their reachability over settlement networks) are called "Standing Settlement Instructions". SWIFT does seem to offer these as a service [1]. But just like the messaging layer, this can be done via other means. For example, here [2] is Citibank Poland declaring their reachability for various currency transfers. As for the messaging service itself, I believe that cutting off SWIFT SSI access would help in disrupting payment flows in the short term, but in the long term, sanction lists are the real enforcement mechanism. As others in this thread have already said, these are a very powerful indirect stick when implemented as "you must adhere to our embargo lists, or we will prohibit all of the banks in our jurisdiction to do any kind of business with you, whether for embargoed clients or others". [1] https://www.swift.com/our-solutions/compliance-and-shared-services/swiftref/standing-settlement-instructions https://www.swift.com/our-solutions/compliance-and-shared-se... [2] https://www.citibank.pl/poland/corporate/polish/files/list_of_correspondent_banks.pdf https://www.citibank.pl/poland/corporate/polish/files/list_o...

JacobThreeThree 5y ago

>I can 100% confirm that all money in the world is just literally numbers, and it is balanced by the different federal reserve systems around the world to ensure no one can "create" money without notifying everyone. How does the system guarantee that nobody's creating money without notifying everyone? Furthermore, does the system guarantee that the central banks of each country are correctly adjusting their books in consequence? Is it all just a trust-based system, or are there additional controls?

lxgr 5y ago
> How does the system guarantee that nobody's creating money without notifying everyone? Through a series of regulations regarding minimum liquidity/capital [1] and/or reserve [2] requirements. > Furthermore, does the system guarantee that the central banks of each country are correctly adjusting their books in consequence? By requiring them to periodically report on their assets and liabilities, checking for compliance with [1] and [2], and monitoring their reserve accounts. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basel_III https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basel_III [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reserve_requirement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reserve_requirement
- anonporridge 5y ago
  So it's all trust based? We have to trust that all the governments of the world, who pinky promised to follow the rules, aren't secretly cheating internally and reporting false numbers to everyone else?
  - worik 5y ago
    Yes. Money means nothing without trust. I do not think we can have civilisation without trust
    - anonporridge 5y ago
      "The root problem with conventional currency is all the trust that's required to make it work. The central bank must be trusted not to debase the currency, but the history of fiat currencies is full of breaches of that trust." -- Satoshi Nakamoto

_448 5y ago

How does one connect to the SWIFT network? Say, someone wants to start a company for providing some financial service like fund transfer across borders, then connecting to SWIFT will be very helpful. I was always fascinated by how all this works and what does it take to directly use the SWIFT network. Any insights on this will be really helpful.

mistrial9 5y ago
help yourself to some legal accreditation in your actual jurisdiction, to start.
lxgr 5y ago
> How does one connect to the SWIFT network? You generally need to be a bank or regulated financial institution. SWIFT is just a messaging layer for correspondent banking. If you're not a bank, SWIFT access is about as useful as suddenly learning your country's president's cell phone number: Definitely cool, but the two of you would probably not have much to talk about.
VBprogrammer 5y ago
I used SWIFT messages as part of my first real job (finance rather than tech). The format itself is comically loose, ill defined and fugly by any reasonable measure. When something really screwed up you resorted to sending MT599 messages around, free format text messages. I believe it's all SWIFT over IP this century so probably not dissimilar to any other API you might use.
sealthedeal 5y ago
You can go online to swift and apply. Large corporates can actually be members. We access the SWIFT network through a myriad of different banking and financial institutions we have created partnerships with. I.e. if you go and create a neobank through a baas provider you will inadvertently get access to SWIFT, it won’t be direct but you have access. To get true access you have to go through and insane process and have a ton of controls and policies and create trust with the governing body of SWIFT.
- 5y ago

melony 5y ago

Pricing for routefusion?

sealthedeal 5y ago
Hit me up, colton@routefusion :)

ta988 5y ago

You should do that AMA.

mi_lk 5y ago

what are the best books/resources to read about the system?

sealthedeal 5y ago
It is all so vague. It took me so long to get a decent understanding. I write about a lot of it here https://docs.routefusion.com/blog https://docs.routefusion.com/blog

mvkel 5y ago

Do you see blockchain tech eventually replacing these trusted systems with a trustless one?

samstave 5y ago
not until they can successfully, secretly, launder money and hide money in shell companies and other fraudulent activities that a very large portion of the money flow in the world relies on. Also. at a level above "money" what do the ultra wealthy (Rothschild, Rockefeller, etc) deal in as currency at their level. I believe they have another currency. These families have FAR greater wealth than Bezos and Zuck (Bill Gates is essentially family to the Rothschilds. through his father/grandfather)

Terry_Roll 5y ago

> I can 100% confirm that all money in the world is just literally numbers, and it is balanced by the different federal reserve systems around the world to ensure no one can "create" money without notifying everyone. So how does this stack up when the CIA are purportedly printing their own currency? Or are the CIA and others exploiting the lack of security measures built into cash? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superdollar#CIA https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superdollar#CIA My understanding of money creation aka FIAT currency is banks/lenders deposit a small % with the central bank and can then create circa 90%+ of money out of thin air when someone takes on a loan. https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/-/media/boe/files/quarterly-bulletin/2014/money-creation-in-the-modern-economy.pdf https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/-/media/boe/files/quarterly-... https://www.economicsnetwork.ac.uk/archive/starkey_banking#:~:text=However%2C%20the%20Bank%20of%20England%20recently%20issued%20a,of%20money%20creation%20%28McLeay%2C%20Radia%2C%20%26%20Thomas%2C%202014%29 https://www.economicsnetwork.ac.uk/archive/starkey_banking#:.... With this being the case, then borrowing money not only demonstrates banks have more intelligence on people in order to decide whether to lend money or not, but it also benefits some in society more than others when considering credit rating agencies. Edit: In other words, the amount of debt someone can take on is a sign of good behaviour and nothing more, a variation of monkeys being taught the concept of money and then scientists witnessing how monkeys traded their tokens, notably, females got cash for sex, males got cash for stuff the female wanted. Basic.

baby 5y ago

I thought swift was just a protocol that banks used to talk to one another. If so how can it be used to cut russia? I’m guessing I’m missing a part where it is some centralized server somewhere?

sealthedeal 5y ago
It’s just how banks tell one another money is coming to them. Without Swift money would just be showing up and no one would know wtf was going on.
- baby 5y ago
  I'm not sure I understand, how does "money show up"? Do you mean that bank A doesn't have an account at bank Z, so they must take another route A -> B -> Z, and thus at some point bank B might credit bank Z account and bank A needs to tell that to bank Z?