Britain seeks to expel Russia from Swift

Downing Street is renewing its drive to expel Russia completely from Swift – a move that was resisted by nations in Western Europe last month.

Swift, founded in 1973, was initiated for simple payment instructions and now enables cross-border transactions with foreign banks.

Swift enables a variety of actions - including security transactions, treasury transactions, trade transactions, and system transactions. It has more than 11,000 institutional members from over 200 countries and territories.
 

In 2012, the European Union disconnected some Iranian banks from Swift in response to its disputed nuclear programme. In February 2022, Western leaders agreed to remove some banks in Russia from Swift.

Downing Street has said “there is more we can do on Swift”, and Foreign Secretary Liz Truss is spending this week pressing Nato and the G7 to enhance sanctions. The Times reports she has raised the issue with EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell – although it is believed some EU nations are reluctant to cut Russia from Swift completely.

Following the discovery of mass graves outside Kyiv, Dmytro Kuleba, Ukraine’s foreign minister, said: “The West continues to fuel the Russian war machine with payments for fossil fuels, with trade that is still taking place between Russia and Western countries, with financial transactions conducted through Russian banks that have not been disconnected from Swift yet”.

He called for the West “to take the most severe sanctions against Russia this week”.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson pledged that “the UK will not stand idly by whilst this indiscriminate slaughter takes place”.

The government is also pushing for the West to agree to a deadline for ending the use of Russian energy. This is seen as the biggest measure, due to the fact that Russian gas imports amount to about 40% of EU countries’ supply.

Downing Street called for the world to “cut out oil and gas” from Russia at “maximum speed”.