SWIFT to disconnect individual Russian banks after receiving legal instructions, discussing details with authorities

MOSCOW. March 1 (Interfax) - SWIFT will disconnect the individual banks subject to sanctions in the Russian Federation after receiving legal instructions, and it is discussing the details with the authorities, the company said in a statement posted on its website.

"We are aware of the joint statement issued by the leaders of the European Commission, France, Germany, Italy, Great Britain, Canada and the United States, in which they express their intention to introduce new measures to limit the access of certain Russian banks to our financial messaging services. Diplomatic decisions have led SWIFT to efforts to terminate the crisis, and we will always comply with applicable laws on sanctions," SWIFT said in the statement.

"We are cooperating with the authorities in these countries in order to understand which organizations will be subject to the new measures, and we will disconnect them just as soon as we have received the legal instructions," the company said.

SWIFT (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications) is a system for transmitting financial messages, namely payment instructions, central bank transfer instructions, and support information, for carrying out transactions on the payments, securities and derivatives markets. The system connects more than 11,000 financial institutions in over 200 countries.