Swift

Article: Alterative SWIFT system

What is the SWIFT system? It stands for the Society for the Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication. It is an organization that standardizes global interactivity for financial transactions. SWIFT establishes a global communications link for data processing and a common language for international financial transactions. It also operates a messaging service for financial messages, such as letters of credit, payments, and securities transactions between member banks worldwide. SWIFT's primary function is to deliver messages quickly and securely. SWIFT operates out of its Brussels headquarters and processes data at centers in Belgium and the United States. The SWIFT has about 10,500 financial organizations from 210 different countries. (techtarget.com)

The US and the UK were not pleased with Russia interfering with the Ukraine situation. In September 2014 at the UN summit, the UK proposed to heavily sanction or ban Russia from the SWIFT system. Even though the proposal was not supported by the UN, it left a bad taste in Russia’s mouth. (tass.com)

Russia did not take kindly to the proposal. “Ramila Kanafina, deputy head of the national payment system department at the Central Bank of Russia, said the Russian central bank is taking no chances. “Given the challenges, Bank of Russia is creating is own system for transmitting financial messaging.”(Computerweekly.com)

According to an article on examiner.com, announced on November 10, 2014, Russia un-pegged the Rouble and is allowing it to free float in the global currency system. The alternative SWIFT which Russia is calling ROSSWIFT has a lot of people worried that Russia is going after the United States dollar as the reserve currency. The U.S. tends to use the SWIFT system and the reserve currency as a weapon against any country that it doesn’t like. As of now, the SWIFT system mainly facilitates transaction using the U.S. dollar, which is manhandled by the United States....