UK pushes Europe to cut Russia off from Swift

finextra.com:

Truss will attempt to negotiate for this position after the European Union failed to adopt sanctions, as reported in The Guardian. The UK maintains its position that with Ukraine mounting a defence, this is the optimum time to get ahead of Russia and interfere with its economy.

UK defence secretary Ben Wallace said: “We would like to go further. We’d like to do the Swift system - that is the financial system that allows the Russians to move money around the world to receive payments for its gas - but … these are international organisations and if not every country wants them to be thrown out of the Swift system, it becomes difficult.”While this has been dubbed the “nuclear option,” the US and EU are continuing to hold back from cutting Russia off from Swift after voicing their concerns for the impact it would have on larger economies in Europe.CNN reports that US President Biden believes that depriving Russia of access to Swift is “always an option.” However, "right now, that's not the position that the rest of Europe wishes to take.”If Russia were to be unplugged from Swift, its economy would shrink by 5%, as predicted by former finance minister Alexei Kudrin in 2014 the last time the sanction was considered in response to the Russian annexation of Crimea.Further, when Iranian banks were sanctioned by the EU over their nuclear programme in 2012, Iran lost almost half of its oil export revenue and 30% of foreign trade following the disconnection.

CNN also reports that Russia has indeed taken steps to prepare for this potential eventuality.Moscow’s own payment system SPFS is available, despite being hit by sanctions in 2014 following the annexation of Crimea. SPFS has around 400 users and 20% of domestic transfers are