A coalition of nato-aligned countries has committed to new measures meant to sever Russia from the global financial system. The letter lays out new measures to isolate Russia’s central bank, and announces a new task force to freeze the foreign assets of sanctioned individuals.

Order also blocks select Russian banks from using swift – the international payment system employed by banks to send money around the world. Move comes as the order also block select Russia banks using swift.

Swift is a cooperative company based in Belgium, whose owners include many of Europe’s largest banks. Its services are used to process some 42 million exchanges in more than 200 countries each day.

The move will be painful for Russian banks and markets, which have already been targeted by various financial sanctions. Russian banks, markets have been targeted as financial sanctions.

A comment article from the Carnegie Moscow center think tank in 2021 described the move as a’nuclear option’. The cutoff would terminate all international transactions, trigger currency volatility, and cause massive capital outflows.

The order does not institute a total ban on Russian access to Swift. However, it commits to’ensure that selected Russian banks are removed from the swift messaging system’.

When Iran was ejected from swift in 2012, it destroyed almost half the value of the country’s oil sector. Iranian banks were reconnected to Swift in 2016.