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What you are implying here is that SWIFT ban is not that big of a deal as there are alternatives. You are probably more educated on this, but I'm an Iranian an

What you are implying here is that SWIFT ban is not that big of a deal as there are alternatives. You are probably more educated on this, but I'm an Iranian and Iran was the only country so far that was banned from SWIFT. And it was a very very big deal. The banks could not deal with anywhere in the world and it become very difficult to send or receive money. The EU tried to setup an alternative to SWIFT [0] so they could work with Iran but it didn't really work out. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instrument_in_Support_of_Trade_Exchanges https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instrument_in_Support_of_Trade...

atdrummond 5y ago
A big complicating factor there was also the concomitant sanctions by the US and some of their allies. I don't want to imply that I don't think banning SWIFT wasn't important or impactful in either of these cases (it was) - I just wanted to make clear what precisely was happening, as I don't think most reporting was very clear. I'm sorry if it came off otherwise; I appreciate you dropping this comment as I don't want anyone getting the impression that I'm flippantly suggesting that Russia could easily go on with business as usual through alternative means.
- traceroute66 5y ago
  > I don't want anyone getting the impression that I'm flippantly suggesting that Russia could easily go on with business as usual through alternative means. One would obviously hope that the cumulative effects of the various sanctions make it difficult or impossible for Russia to continue with business as usual. However, part of me worries about the abilities of the oligarch network. I mean, if you look at the various flight tracking websites. Sure a lot of the commercial aviation traffic has been killed off, but there are still large numbers of private jets floating around in and out of Moscow. How is this possible ? Because the sanctions are only against Russian registered aircraft, and most of those private jets are registered elsewhere and/or are hidden behind charter companies registered elsewhere. Quite possibly this extends to finance ? I imagine there is potential to find alternative financing routes. It wouldn't be able to last forever, for sure, but might last longer than the West anticipates.
  - cynusx 5y ago
    It does to finance as well, however the intent is to also target 2nd and 3th degree actors because it is extremely common to hide the true owner of the money in Finance (tax evasion, sanction evasions, ...) Here SIGINTEL can contribute a lot but also just better data pooling between the countries and more modern methods of detection. This international commitment to combat money laundering has so far been lacking but it seems this invasion is giving the momentum needed to put such systems and collaborations in place. It will still take some time though before it's in place.
  - azalemeth 5y ago
    In many ways, the oligarch jet movements are a positive sign: they're having to move around (or at least move their assets around) and incur both significant cost and scrutiny in the process. For all you know, a Bermudan registered Gulfstream moving from Monaco to SVO, Moscow, contains a pissed off oligarch watching his lifestyle and investments crumble. Or, it could be a strategic hedge to ensure he retains control of the jet. Either way, the sanctions are causing an effect, and by all accounts a significant one. Battles are won or lost by explosives, inexplicably awful things and largely brave men being sacrificed, by their choice or others. Wars are won or lost by economics.
    - adultSwim 5y ago
      I worry a little that we will test the limits of sanctions. Sanctions kill, yet are often not considered an act of war. We are used to imposing them on countries with little world power or ability to fight back. If the sanctions are harsh enough, is there potential for a military response?
      - dragonwriter 5y ago
        There's a risk of that if we don't abide by Putin’s demands to back NATO away from its existing positions as well as stopping expansion. Binary “is there a risk” questions are mostly not useful, because the answer is almost always yes.
2Gkashmiri 5y ago
how is crypto scene in iran? with india's recent tax daylight robbery on crypto i am confident that a lot more people will join the informal network of owning and transacting in crypto. if i have to buy 1k worth of BTC or ETH for example, i can imagine paying a friend the cash and getting their wallet in return. now translate that to international cross-border transactions and we have a bypass. do iranians accept crypto as in other countries (to be fair, even india is far far behind but the recent acceptance by imposing tax is seen in a good light overall)
Vaderv 5y ago
n2j3 5y ago
North Korea is also banned from SWIFT.
Mindwipe 5y ago
> What you are implying here is that SWIFT ban is not that big of a deal as there are alternatives. I don't think it's so much that, but the UK and US bans on dollar clearance for banking which happened a few days before the SWIFT block actually did 90% of the work that the SWIFT ban is getting the credit for. It's like turning off the metadata layer two days after putting an axe through the ethernet cable.
- sam_lowry_ 5y ago
  SWIFT is a stone-age blockchain. Its messages have non-repudation properties. The ban makes it much harder to make settlements.
  - dariusj18 5y ago
    I imagine the idea being that without SWIFT, any bank will require the funds to have actually moved before they are made available.
yyyk 5y ago
Unlike Iran, Russian banks has not been all disconnected from SWIFT. Only a few banks were. So effect is much smaller. In general, the sanctions on Russia are limited and not strict, the US hasn't gone anywhere as far as it could[0]. [0] https://twitter.com/M_S_Billingslea/status/1498429531195154435 https://twitter.com/M_S_Billingslea/status/14984295311951544... Also, in Iran's case there's the FATF issue which doesn't yet exist regarding Russia.
- lobocinza 5y ago
  So basically they are giving time to those that should be affected to move their funds and later when sanctions are increased it will only cause collateral damage.
  - onlyrealcuzzo 5y ago
    Oligarchs don't have a ton of cash - the VAST majority of their assets are either in the Russian companies they own majority stakes in (which are down 50-90%) or overseas (which have been frozen and are actively being seized). It's pretty hard to take all $80Bn from a foreigner. Especially without destroying a lot of value for other people.
    - drcongo 5y ago
      > or overseas (which have been frozen and are actively being seized) Except in the UK, where they fund the tory party so there's very little being done.
      - mminer237 5y ago
        ??? Boris Johnson has been the most outspoken voice outside Ukraine for increasing sanctions against Russia. He's already announced freezing assets of all Russian banks and 100 other people or corporations,[1] and he led the charge of getting Russia cut off from SWIFT.[2] Germany and Italy were the ones opposing it since they are dependent on Russia for energy. [1]: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-60515626 https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-60515626 [2]: https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ft.com%2Fcontent%2F69f72de5-d727-496d-9f9d-316db7bdaf03 https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ft.com%2Fcontent%2...
jerf 5y ago
I didn't get the sense that the author is implying that anything is or is not a big deal. I believe the author was just correcting for a technical audience that can understand it what SWIFT is. As the author said, the media makes it sound like an API for moving money around. There were some other posts on HN about the consequences of misunderstanding what SWIFT was, I recall one person mentioned being assigned a project to "integrate with SWIFT" which turned out upon deeper analysis to be impossible as assigned, because the people handing them the assignment didn't realize what SWIFT actually was and also had the same misconception.

atdrummond 5y ago

A big complicating factor there was also the concomitant sanctions by the US and some of their allies. I don't want to imply that I don't think banning SWIFT wasn't important or impactful in either of these cases (it was) - I just wanted to make clear what precisely was happening, as I don't think most reporting was very clear. I'm sorry if it came off otherwise; I appreciate you dropping this comment as I don't want anyone getting the impression that I'm flippantly suggesting that Russia could easily go on with business as usual through alternative means.

traceroute66 5y ago
> I don't want anyone getting the impression that I'm flippantly suggesting that Russia could easily go on with business as usual through alternative means. One would obviously hope that the cumulative effects of the various sanctions make it difficult or impossible for Russia to continue with business as usual. However, part of me worries about the abilities of the oligarch network. I mean, if you look at the various flight tracking websites. Sure a lot of the commercial aviation traffic has been killed off, but there are still large numbers of private jets floating around in and out of Moscow. How is this possible ? Because the sanctions are only against Russian registered aircraft, and most of those private jets are registered elsewhere and/or are hidden behind charter companies registered elsewhere. Quite possibly this extends to finance ? I imagine there is potential to find alternative financing routes. It wouldn't be able to last forever, for sure, but might last longer than the West anticipates.
- cynusx 5y ago
  It does to finance as well, however the intent is to also target 2nd and 3th degree actors because it is extremely common to hide the true owner of the money in Finance (tax evasion, sanction evasions, ...) Here SIGINTEL can contribute a lot but also just better data pooling between the countries and more modern methods of detection. This international commitment to combat money laundering has so far been lacking but it seems this invasion is giving the momentum needed to put such systems and collaborations in place. It will still take some time though before it's in place.
- azalemeth 5y ago
  In many ways, the oligarch jet movements are a positive sign: they're having to move around (or at least move their assets around) and incur both significant cost and scrutiny in the process. For all you know, a Bermudan registered Gulfstream moving from Monaco to SVO, Moscow, contains a pissed off oligarch watching his lifestyle and investments crumble. Or, it could be a strategic hedge to ensure he retains control of the jet. Either way, the sanctions are causing an effect, and by all accounts a significant one. Battles are won or lost by explosives, inexplicably awful things and largely brave men being sacrificed, by their choice or others. Wars are won or lost by economics.
  - adultSwim 5y ago
    I worry a little that we will test the limits of sanctions. Sanctions kill, yet are often not considered an act of war. We are used to imposing them on countries with little world power or ability to fight back. If the sanctions are harsh enough, is there potential for a military response?
    - dragonwriter 5y ago
      There's a risk of that if we don't abide by Putin’s demands to back NATO away from its existing positions as well as stopping expansion. Binary “is there a risk” questions are mostly not useful, because the answer is almost always yes.

2Gkashmiri 5y ago

how is crypto scene in iran? with india's recent tax daylight robbery on crypto i am confident that a lot more people will join the informal network of owning and transacting in crypto. if i have to buy 1k worth of BTC or ETH for example, i can imagine paying a friend the cash and getting their wallet in return. now translate that to international cross-border transactions and we have a bypass. do iranians accept crypto as in other countries (to be fair, even india is far far behind but the recent acceptance by imposing tax is seen in a good light overall)

Vaderv 5y ago

n2j3 5y ago

North Korea is also banned from SWIFT.

Mindwipe 5y ago

> What you are implying here is that SWIFT ban is not that big of a deal as there are alternatives. I don't think it's so much that, but the UK and US bans on dollar clearance for banking which happened a few days before the SWIFT block actually did 90% of the work that the SWIFT ban is getting the credit for. It's like turning off the metadata layer two days after putting an axe through the ethernet cable.

sam_lowry_ 5y ago
SWIFT is a stone-age blockchain. Its messages have non-repudation properties. The ban makes it much harder to make settlements.
- dariusj18 5y ago
  I imagine the idea being that without SWIFT, any bank will require the funds to have actually moved before they are made available.

yyyk 5y ago

Unlike Iran, Russian banks has not been all disconnected from SWIFT. Only a few banks were. So effect is much smaller. In general, the sanctions on Russia are limited and not strict, the US hasn't gone anywhere as far as it could[0]. [0] https://twitter.com/M_S_Billingslea/status/1498429531195154435 https://twitter.com/M_S_Billingslea/status/14984295311951544... Also, in Iran's case there's the FATF issue which doesn't yet exist regarding Russia.

lobocinza 5y ago
So basically they are giving time to those that should be affected to move their funds and later when sanctions are increased it will only cause collateral damage.
- onlyrealcuzzo 5y ago
  Oligarchs don't have a ton of cash - the VAST majority of their assets are either in the Russian companies they own majority stakes in (which are down 50-90%) or overseas (which have been frozen and are actively being seized). It's pretty hard to take all $80Bn from a foreigner. Especially without destroying a lot of value for other people.
  - drcongo 5y ago
    > or overseas (which have been frozen and are actively being seized) Except in the UK, where they fund the tory party so there's very little being done.
    - mminer237 5y ago
      ??? Boris Johnson has been the most outspoken voice outside Ukraine for increasing sanctions against Russia. He's already announced freezing assets of all Russian banks and 100 other people or corporations,[1] and he led the charge of getting Russia cut off from SWIFT.[2] Germany and Italy were the ones opposing it since they are dependent on Russia for energy. [1]: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-60515626 https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-60515626 [2]: https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ft.com%2Fcontent%2F69f72de5-d727-496d-9f9d-316db7bdaf03 https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ft.com%2Fcontent%2...

jerf 5y ago

I didn't get the sense that the author is implying that anything is or is not a big deal. I believe the author was just correcting for a technical audience that can understand it what SWIFT is. As the author said, the media makes it sound like an API for moving money around. There were some other posts on HN about the consequences of misunderstanding what SWIFT was, I recall one person mentioned being assigned a project to "integrate with SWIFT" which turned out upon deeper analysis to be impossible as assigned, because the people handing them the assignment didn't realize what SWIFT actually was and also had the same misconception.