SWIFT is used by thousands of financial institutions in more than 200 countries, previously including Russia, and provides a secure messaging system to facilitate cross-border money transfers.
[7] French Minister of Finance Bruno Le Maire urged Russia to be expelled from SWIFT for its invasion of Ukraine.
[11] US officials and their EU counterparts initially considered the involvement of individual banks and organizations, and the entire Russian economy.
[13] The European Union, United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States finally agreed to remove seven Russian banks from the SWIFT messaging system:[14] EU ambassadors have decided not to impose restrictions on the country's largest bank, Sberbank, which is partly owned by Russian gas giant Gazprom.
[16] Washington imposed new sanctions on Russia's Gazprombank that prevent the state-controlled lender from handling any new energy-related transactions that touch the U.S. financial system.
Russian Deputy Energy Minister Pavel Sorokin declined to comment when asked if Gazprombank would continue receiving payments from European clients.