IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/jecper/v37y2023i1p31-52.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Financial Sanctions, SWIFT, and the Architecture of the International Payment System

Author

Listed:
  • Marco Cipriani
  • Linda S. Goldberg
  • Gabriele La Spada

Abstract

Financial sanctions, alongside economic sanctions, are components of the toolkit used by governments as part of international diplomacy. The use of sanctions, especially financial, has increased over the last 70 years. Financial sanctions have been particularly important whenever the goals of the sanctioning countries were related to democracy and human rights. Financial sanctions restrict entities—countries, businesses, or even individuals—from purchasing or selling financial assets, or from accessing custodial or other financial services. They can be imposed on a sanctioned entity's ability to access the infrastructures that are in place to execute international payments, irrespective of whether such payments underpin financial or real activity. This article explains how financial sanctions can be designed to limit access to the international payment system and, in particular, the SWIFT network, and provides some recent examples.

Suggested Citation

  • Marco Cipriani & Linda S. Goldberg & Gabriele La Spada, 2023. "Financial Sanctions, SWIFT, and the Architecture of the International Payment System," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 37(1), pages 31-52, Winter.
    • Handle: RePEc:aea:jecper:v:37:y:2023:i:1:p:31-52
    DOI: 10.1257/jep.37.1.31
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/jep.37.1.31
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/jep.37.1.31.appx
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/jep.37.1.31.ds
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1257/jep.37.1.31?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Gabriele Galati, 2002. "Settlement risk in foreign exchange markets and CLS Bank," BIS Quarterly Review, Bank for International Settlements, December.
    2. Marieke De Goede, 2012. "The SWIFT Affair and the Global Politics of European Security," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 50(2), pages 214-230, March.
    3. Susan V. Scott & Markos Zachariadis, 2012. "Origins and development of SWIFT, 1973--2009," Business History, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 54(3), pages 462-482, June.
    4. Tara Rice & Goetz von Peter & Codruta Boar, 2020. "On the global retreat of correspondent banks," BIS Quarterly Review, Bank for International Settlements, March.
    5. Gary Clyde Hufbauer & Jeffrey J. Schott & Barbara Oegg, 2001. "Using Sanctions to Fight Terrorism," Policy Briefs PB01-11, Peterson Institute for International Economics.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Steven Rosefielde, 2024. "Impairing Globalization: The Russo-Ukrainian War, Western Economic Sanctions and Asset Seizures," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 17(9), pages 1-11, September.
    2. Charles Needham & Maria Needham, 2023. "The Global Financial Crisis During the Years 2008 and 2009," Journal of Business Administration Research, Journal of Business Administration Research, Sciedu Press, vol. 12(2), pages 45-53, October.
    3. Mikhail Mamonov & Anna Pestova & Steven Ongena, 2023. "'Crime and Punishment'? How Banks Anticipate and Propagate Global Financial Sanctions," Swiss Finance Institute Research Paper Series 23-59, Swiss Finance Institute.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Raphael Auer & Codruta Boar & Giulio Cornelli & Jon Frost & Henry Holden & Andreas Wehrli, 2021. "CBDCs beyond borders: results from a survey of central banks," BIS Papers, Bank for International Settlements, number 116.
    2. Raphael Auer & Philipp Haene & Henry Holden, 2021. "Multi-CBDC arrangements and the future of cross-border payments," BIS Papers, Bank for International Settlements, number 115.
    3. Fischer, Andreas M. & Ranaldo, Angelo, 2011. "Does FOMC news increase global FX trading?," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 35(11), pages 2965-2973, November.
    4. Borchert, Lea & de Haas, Ralph & Kirschenmann, Karolin & Schultz, Alison, 2023. "Broken relationships: De-risking by correspondent banks and international trade," ZEW Discussion Papers 23-064, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    5. Claudio Borio, 2007. "Change and Constancy in the Financial System: Implications for Financial Distress and Policy," RBA Annual Conference Volume (Discontinued), in: Christopher Kent & Jeremy Lawson (ed.),The Structure and Resilience of the Financial System, Reserve Bank of Australia.
    6. Beverley Mullings, 2022. "Racial capitalism, coloniality and the financialization of Caribbean remittances," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 54(4), pages 744-760, June.
    7. Bernardo Bátiz-Lazo, 2017. "Between Novelty and Fashion: Risk Management and the Adoption of Computers in Retail Banking," Palgrave Studies in the History of Finance, in: Korinna Schönhärl (ed.), Decision Taking, Confidence and Risk Management in Banks from Early Modernity to the 20th Century, pages 189-207, Palgrave Macmillan.
    8. Fujiki, Hiroshi & Green, Edward J. & Yamazaki, Akira, 2008. "Incentive efficient risk sharing in a settlement mechanism," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 142(1), pages 178-195, September.
    9. Scott, Susan V. & Van Reenen, John & Zachariadis, Markos, 2017. "The long-term effect of digital innovation on bank performance: An empirical study of SWIFT adoption in financial services," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 46(5), pages 984-1004.
    10. Morten Bech & Jhuvesh Sobrun, 2013. "FX market trends before, between and beyond Triennial Surveys," BIS Quarterly Review, Bank for International Settlements, December.
    11. Harvey, Rachel, 2013. "The legal construction of the global foreign exchange market," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(2), pages 343-354.
    12. Tsuyuguchi, Yosuke & Wooldridge, Philip D., 2008. "The evolution of trading activity in Asian foreign exchange markets," Emerging Markets Review, Elsevier, vol. 9(4), pages 231-246, December.
    13. Muhammad Islam & Wassim Shahin, 2001. "Applying economic methodology to the war on terrorism," Forum for Social Economics, Springer;The Association for Social Economics, vol. 31(1), pages 7-26, September.
    14. Davor Jančić, 2016. "The Role of the European Parliament and the US Congress in Shaping Transatlantic Relations: TTIP, NSA Surveillance, and CIA Renditions," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 54(4), pages 896-912, July.
    15. David Leung & Bénédicte Nolens & Douglas Arner & Jon Frost, 2022. "Corporate digital identity: no silver bullet, but a silver lining," BIS Papers, Bank for International Settlements, number 126.
    16. Ranaldo, Angelo & Somogyi, Fabricius, 2021. "Asymmetric information risk in FX markets," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 140(2), pages 391-411.
    17. Grossman, Richard, 2016. "Banking Crises," CEPR Discussion Papers 11268, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    18. Agustín Carstens, 2020. "Shaping the future of payments," BIS Quarterly Review, Bank for International Settlements, March.
    19. Kaltenbrunner, Annina & Perez Ruiz, Daniel & Okot, Anjelo, 2022. "A structural analysis of foreign exchange markets in sub-Saharan Africa," EIB Working Papers 2022/11, European Investment Bank (EIB).
    20. Markus Merz, 2021. "Contemporaneous financial intermediation," Digital Finance, Springer, vol. 3(1), pages 25-44, March.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • E42 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Monetary Sytsems; Standards; Regimes; Government and the Monetary System
    • F51 - International Economics - - International Relations, National Security, and International Political Economy - - - International Conflicts; Negotiations; Sanctions
    • G21 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Banks; Other Depository Institutions; Micro Finance Institutions; Mortgages
    • G28 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Government Policy and Regulation
    • N20 - Economic History - - Financial Markets and Institutions - - - General, International, or Comparative
    • N40 - Economic History - - Government, War, Law, International Relations, and Regulation - - - General, International, or Comparative

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:aea:jecper:v:37:y:2023:i:1:p:31-52. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Michael P. Albert (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aeaaaea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.