18 Facts About SWIFT

SWIFT messaging network is a component of the global payments system.

SWIFT has since introduced an improved service called "Global Payments Innovation", claiming it was adopted by 165 banks and was completing half its payments within 30 minutes.

The chairman of SWIFT is Yawar Shah of Pakistan, and its CEO is Javier Perez-Tasso of Spain.

SWIFT started to establish common standards for financial transactions and a shared data processing system and worldwide communications network designed by Logica and developed by the Burroughs Corporation.

SWIFT has become the industry standard for syntax in financial messages.

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SWIFT cooperates with international organizations for defining standards for message format and content.

SWIFT is Registration authority for the following ISO standards:.

Shortly after opening its third data center in Switzerland in 2009, SWIFT introduced new distributed architecture with two messaging zones, European and Trans-Atlantic, so data from European SWIFT members no longer mirrored the U S data center.

SWIFT provides a centralized store-and-forward mechanism, with some transaction management.

Under 3 above, SWIFT provides turn-key solutions for members, consisting of linkage clients to facilitate connectivity to the SWIFT network and CBTs or "computer based terminals" which members use to manage the delivery and receipt of their messages.

The NSA intercepted and retained data from the SWIFT network used by thousands of banks to securely send transaction information.

SWIFT was named as a "target", according to documents leaked by Edward Snowden.

The documents revealed that the NSA spied on SWIFT using a variety of methods, including reading "SWIFT printer traffic from numerous banks".

UANI asserted that Iran's membership in SWIFT violated US and EU financial sanctions against Iran as well as SWIFT's own corporate rules.

Consequently, in February 2012, the U S Senate Banking Committee unanimously approved sanctions against SWIFT aimed at pressuring it to terminate its ties with blacklisted Iranian banks.

On 17 March 2012, following agreement two days earlier between all 27 member states of the Council of the European Union and the Council's subsequent ruling, SWIFT disconnected all Iranian banks that had been identified as institutions in breach of current EU sanctions from its international network and warned that even more Iranian financial institutions could be disconnected from the network.

SPFS, a Russia-based SWIFT equivalent, was created by the Central Bank of Russia as a backup measure.

In 2014, SWIFT rejected calls from pro-Palestinian activists to revoke Israeli banks' access to its network.