SWIFT

This Banking Official’s Warning May Spark Rush To Pull Out Money

~ admin ~ 2 Comments

bamlsDaniel Jennings – Hackers now have the ability to bring down an entire bank by cyberattack, one of the world’s top banking officials is warning.

Gottfried Leibbrandt, the CEO of SWIFT (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication), said major cyberattacks on banks in three different countries in the past year demonstrated that hackers now have the ability to completely wipe out a major financial institution. SWIFT is a money transfer network for the world’s banks.

“The banks were compromised, credentials to payment generation systems were obtained to send fraudulent payments, and the statements/confirmations from their counterparties were obfuscated,” Leibbrandt revealed at a conference in Brussels.

SWIFT previously had warned that the attacks are “part of a wider and highly adaptive campaign.”

Three attacks have him concerned: Continue reading →

James Corbett ~ China’s SWIFT Alternative And The (Engineered) Death Of The Dollar

~ admin ~ 1 Comment

“. . . the players who have been dominating world finance for decades (if not centuries) are not stupid; they are deliberately engineering the West’s downfall in order to bring about their dreamed-of world governmental and world financial system.” – J Corbett

Forget all the nonsense and hoopla about the Apple Watch or the GM stock buy-back. Far and away the most important economic story of the week is one you won’t find on the front page of Bloomberg or MarketWatch. New reports indicate that China is ready to launch its SWIFT alternative, and for those who have their ear to the ground this is the most significant move yet in the unfolding process of de-dollarization that is seeing the BRICS-led “resistance bloc” breaking away from the financial stranglehold of the US-led “Washington Consensus.”

For those who don’t know, SWIFT stands for the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication and is shorthand for the SWIFTNet Network that is used by over 10,500 financial institutions in 215 countries and territories to transmit financial transaction data around the world. SWIFT does not do any of the clearing or processing for these transactions itself, but instead sends the payment orders that are then settled by correspondent banks of the member institutions. Still, given the system’s near universality in the financial system, it means that virtually every international transaction between banking institutions goes through the SWIFT network.

This is why de-listing from the SWIFT network remains one of the primary financial weapons wielded by the US and its allies in their increasingly important financial warfare campaigns. In 2012, SWIFT agreed to de-list 30 Iranian financial institutions (including the central bank) from their network as part of the US/EU-led sanctions on Tehran, a move that was meant to stop billions of dollars’ worth of oil and export sales from being repatriated into the country and bring Iranian business to a standstill. Throughout the recent tensions between the US bloc and Russia over the civil war in Ukraine, the idea that SWIFT could similarly de-list Russian banks has been repeatedly floated as a potential next step for the US and its allies. Continue reading →

Russia’s SWIFT Settlement Alternative

~ admin ~ Leave a comment

“In a perceptive article, What Petrodollar: Russia, China To Create SWIFT Alternative, points out the irony in the viewpoint reflected in the Economist. “But wait: wasn’t it the UK’s desire to force Russia out of SWIFT just two weeks ago?  Why yes, and the fact that Russia is happy to do so, and on its own terms, once again shows just who has all the leverage, and who really needs, or rather doesn’t, the US Dollar.”” – J Hall

SWIFT-AlternativeThe SWIFT System is an integral part of a communication process that assists payment and clearing of financial transactions. The Corporate-to-Bank site defines it in the following manner and provides several examples of Payment, Clearing and Settlement Systems.

“The Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, Societe Cooperative a Responsabilite Limitee (limited co-operative society) (“SWIFT”) is a member-owned co-operative. SWIFT provides a telecommunication platform for the exchange of standardized financial messages between financial institutions and corporations. SWIFT is neither a payment system nor a settlement system though the SWIFT messaging standard is used in many payment and settlement systems. SWIFT’s customers include banks, market infrastructures, broker-dealers, corporates, custodians, and investment managers. SWIFT is subject to oversight by the central banks of the Group of Ten countries.”

Now that Western Central Banks are coordinating with their puppet governments in a desperate struggle to preserve their financial preeminence, the push back is heating up. The article, Moscow’s Response To Economic Warfare: Central Bank Of Russia Launches SWIFT Alternative For Domestic Payments, states:

“The calls to disconnect Russian banks from the global interbank SWIFT system came amid the deterioration of relations between Russia and the West and the introduction of sanctions.

However, SWIFT itself does not intend to switch Russia off from the system, saying a number of countries put pressure on it, and insists it is not joining the anti-Russian sanctions.”

Continue reading →