More on the potential removal of Russia from SWIFT

For some background to this:

• Momentum grows to remove Russia from SWIFT

An unnamed member of the European Central Bank European Central Bank The European Central Bank (ECB) represents the central banking entity in the Eurozone that oversees monetary policy for the bloc. As a growing geographic and economic region, the eurozone now includes 19 countries, which rely on the euro as their national currency.The eurozone presently consists of Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Spain.In terms of monetary The European Central Bank (ECB) represents the central banking entity in the Eurozone that oversees monetary policy for the bloc. As a growing geographic and economic region, the eurozone now includes 19 countries, which rely on the euro as their national currency.The eurozone presently consists of Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Spain.In terms of monetary Read this Term Governing Council cited by Reuters says a decision to remove Russia is coming:

• "SWIFT is just a matter of time, very short time, days," the central bank governor, who asked not to be named, said.
• "Is it sufficient? No. Is it necessary? Absolutely. Sanctions only make sense if there are costs for both sides and this will be costly,"

Note that European Union foreign affairs ministers are meeting on Sunday. There is some potential for the SWIFT move to be announced as early as then.

Apart from this, there is a Bloomberg report this weekend saying the US is considering sanctions aimed at Russia's central bank (Bank of Russia). Bloomberg cite unnamed "people familiar with the matter" and say the target of sanctions would be much of Russia's reserves.

More at Bloomberg here (gated).

---

Removal of a country from SWIFT is not unprecedented:

• Booting a country off SWIFT has happened before, here's an example from 2017

(Spoiler - North Korea was removed. As a further example, Iran was removed 2012-2016. )

Thankfully take-away food delivery was still available.