Possible disconnection of Russia from the Swift payment system may threaten essential losses for the service. This was stated by Candidate of Economic Sciences Mikhail Belyaev, reports RT.
According to him, Russia is a “solid and weighty” participant of SWIFT, so the system is completely unprofitable to turn off the country. “Russia occupies a sufficiently serious amount of communication, it means that Russia is disconnected, then SWIFT will suffer significant losses,” said Belyaev.
He also reminded that SWIFT is not a system of calculation or money channels, since funds move along bank channels.
“SWIFT is only a message system and a system of teams that give movement to these same money,” the economist explained. Belyaev added that in Russia there is a payment system inside the Central Bank, which solves all the issues in the movement of money and the transfer of financial communications in the country. At the same time, most Russian companies use precisely the domestic system.
The ability to disconnect Russia from SWIFT was repeatedly discussed against the background of the reinforcement of sanctuction pressure from the West and the United States. In March, the press secretary of the President of Russia Dmitry Sadkov was pointed to the possibility of such a step by the United States. In April, with a call, to introduce the relevant restrictions for Russia, the largest fraction of the European Parliament, the European People’s Party (ENP).
At the same time, such measures did not approve in Germany because it can isolate Russia. Also, they stated that this step would only damage the European economy.
The representative of the SWIFT itself in June assured that the country will not be disconnected from the international bank transfer system, explaining this disability of such a measure.