To understand the importance of SWIFT with regards to the Ukrainian-Russian war, I’m reading up on the system. In course of that I learned that Russia built SPFS [1], an alternative and compatible system, in 2014.<p>Could anyone comment on why cutting Russia(n banks) from SWIFT would matter, given they have SPFS anyway?<p>It is clear SPFS is far from being a completely compatible SWIFT alternative. But it still seems like Russia laid a reasonable groundwork for a “post-SWIFT era” and would not really care about what the media seems to consider the strongest possible sanction against it.<p>[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPFS
Because it's not about the protocol. It's about the countries implementing it.<p>+ Swift is cheap vs. Other options and the currency is stable.