{"id":21213,"date":"2018-11-05T18:23:23","date_gmt":"2018-11-05T18:23:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=21213"},"modified":"2018-11-05T18:23:23","modified_gmt":"2018-11-05T18:23:23","slug":"what-is-swift-and-why-it-matters-in-the-us-iran-spat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=21213","title":{"rendered":"What is SWIFT and why it matters in the US-Iran spat"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"body-200771816342556199\" readability=\"65.0238095238\">\n<p class=\"speakable\">The Belgium-based <span>Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Communications (SWIFT)\u00a0<\/span>financial messaging service announced on Wednesday it was suspending access for some Iranian banks &#8220;in the interest of the stability and integrity of the wider global financial system&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"speakable\">The move came after the United States <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/news\/2018\/11\/trump-administration-reinstates-iran-sanctions-181105051328043.html\">reimposed oil and financial sanctions<\/a> against Iran, significantly turning up the pressure on Tehran in order to curb its alleged missile and nuclear programmes.<\/p>\n<p class=\"speakable\">Last week, US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin <a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/article\/us-iran-usa\/iranian-marchers-chant-death-to-america-on-eve-of-u-s-oil-sanctions-idUSKCN1N908J\">told <\/a>reporters that SWIFT could get slapped with sanctions if it provides services to Iranian banks blacklisted by Washington.<\/p>\n<h2>What is SWIFT?<\/h2>\n<ul readability=\"-0.5\">\n<li dir=\"ltr\" readability=\"2\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\"><span>The member-owned cooperative connects more than <\/span><span>11,000 banks, financial institutions and corporations<\/span><span> in more than <\/span><span>200 countrie<\/span><span>s and territories around the world. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>\u00a0What is it not?<\/h2>\n<h2 dir=\"ltr\"><span>Why is SWIFT important?<\/span><\/h2>\n<ul readability=\"-0.5\">\n<li dir=\"ltr\" readability=\"2\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\"><span>Think of SWIFT as<\/span><span> the central nervous system of international financial transactions<\/span><span>. The messaging platform enables financial institutions to send, receive and track information about financial transactions in a secure and standardised way that facilitates the smooth flow of funds across borders.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2 dir=\"ltr\">\n<span>What happens to a countr<\/span><span>y when its banks get cut off from SWIFT?<\/span><br \/>\n<\/h2>\n<h2 dir=\"ltr\">\n<span>What happened to Iran <\/span><span>when it was cut off from SWIFT in 2012?<\/span><br \/>\n<\/h2>\n<h2>How often are countries kicked out of SWIFT?<\/h2>\n<h2 dir=\"ltr\"><span>Does SWIFT have to do what the US wants?<\/span><\/h2>\n<ul readability=\"1.48598130841\">\n<li dir=\"ltr\" readability=\"5.94392523364\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\"><span>But there could be consequences <\/span><span>if it resists US pressure to cut off Iran again. Richard Goldberg, senior advisor at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a think-tank, argued in this <\/span><span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.fdd.org\/analysis\/2018\/09\/26\/what-trump-must-do-to-stop-europe-from-end-running-his-iran-sanctions\/\">blog<\/a>\u00a0<\/span><span>that in 2012, Congress authorised any president to impose sanctions on SWIFT&#8217;s board of directors (which includes executives from some of the world&#8217;s biggest banks) if it refused to disconnect Iranian banks blacklisted by Washington. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Belgium-based Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Communications (SWIFT)\u00a0financial messaging service announced on Wednesday it was suspending access for some Iranian banks &#8220;in the interest of the stability and integrity of the wider global financial system&#8221;. The move came after the United States reimposed oil and financial sanctions against Iran, significantly turning up the pressure&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":21214,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21213","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21213","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21213"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21213\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/21214"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}