The Economist: Russia won’t be broken by possible disconnection from SWIFT

If Russia disconnects from SWIFT, it will quickly replace it with its counterpart

The Economist magazine has published an article suggesting that disconnecting Russia from the international SWIFT system could hurt, but definitely not break Russia, and would have a negative impact on Western countries in the long run.
Calls to disconnect Russia from SWIFT come amid accusations Moscow is building up a military presence on its border with Ukraine.

“Banks and their foreign partners will switch to other means of communication, including telex, telephone and e-mail, and transactions will migrate en masse to SWIFT, the Russian equivalent of SWIFT”, –  the article explained.

There will be some glitches at first, but then investment in the SPSS will speed up the system, the author concluded.

According to the author of the article, Western countries will experience serious “blowback” from such actions, as destabilisation of such a large economy will affect primarily the European Union, which receives 35% of its gas supplies from Russia and has assets valued at $350 billion on its territory.