BREAKING: There Might Be A Way For Russia To Get Around Its Ban From SWIFT; But It Will Come With Extremely High Costs

It was reported earlier today by Newsmax that western sanctions banning several Russian banks from the SWIFT international payments network with the potential threat of more to come if there is no end to the Ukraine conflict is likely to push Moscow to seek alternatives.

Russia could in theory try to replace SWIFT’s communications system that keeps international trade flowing smoothly. But any alternatives would add significant costs and risks for Russian businesses, money transfer experts said. The impact on Russia would be a reduction in imports and export volumes, at least in the short term, they added.

The Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) is a secure messaging system for banks, which facilitates rapid cross-border payments. Senders of SWIFT’s secure messages can be confident they will be acted upon, as recipients are contractually liable if they fail to respond.

Russia has become one of the top users of the system, having had a board seat since 2015 and with more than 300 Russian banks using it as their primary method of communicating with domestic and international banks.

Here is a rundown of the potential alternatives and why it is not easy to replace SWIFT:

RUSSIAN MESSAGING PLATFORM

Russian banks could move to a messaging system developed by Russia’s central bank – System for Transfer of Financial Messages (SPFS). Last year, the central bank was reported as saying domestic interbank traffic could easily be transferred to this platform.

A spokesperson for the Russian Central Bank was not immediately available for comment.

But the “SWIFT analog,” as the central bank calls it, has limitations. It only operates during weekday working hours, while SWIFT operates 24 hours a day, every day. Also, SPFS messages have size limitations potentially making it less able to handle more complex transactions.

The SPFS system also lacks international connectivity.

“Currently, international services are limited to countries such as Armenia, Turkey, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan,” analysts at Morgan Stanley said this week.

Russian banks could in theory use SPFS messaging to send international payments to a connected bank in one of the countries that belong to the network. This bank could then use SWIFT to pipe the instruction into the international banking system, said Alistair Milne, Professor of Financial Economics at Loughborough University.

But a sudden surge in transactions via such a route would be likely to attract the attention of international regulators, thereby deterring the non-Russian partner bank from continuing this activity.

Professor Markos Zachariadis of University of Manchester, author of a book on SWIFT, said even if regulators did not take action, the banks could soon find themselves ostracized by Western banks, which have grown wary of engaging in activity seen as undermining sanctions.