SWIFT (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication) is a secure messaging system that facilitates rapid international payments and is the principal mechanism for financing international trade.
The SWIFT system was created in 1973 in Belgium. More than 11,000 banks and institutions in more than 200 countries are connected to the system.
40 million messages are sent through the SWIFT System every day, and trillions of dollars transacted between governments and financial institutions
Official SWIFT website
SWIFT is overseen by 10 central banks, making up the G-10 (Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, The Netherlands, United Kingdom, United States, Switzerland, and Sweden), as well as the European Central Bank, with its lead overseer being the National Bank of Belgium.
The SWIFT Oversight Forum was established in 2012, in which the G-10 central banks were joined by other central banks from major economies, including the Reserve Bank of India
A SWIFT code is a set of 8 or 11 digits that represents a bank branch. When making an international transaction, this code forms an important cog in the machine
Prior to Russia, only 1 other country had been cut off from the SWIFT system, resulting in loss of 1/3rd of its trade. That country was Iran
The Indian Express
Moscow has been shoring up its foreign currency reserves in the wake of the previous round of sanctions in 2014, during the Crimea annexation, with reserves touching a record high of $630 billion in January 2022.
The Russian rouble has dropped to 117 per US dollar, a 41% slump owing to these economic sanctions