“Since 1977, the mission of SWIFT was to connect the entire world. Not to disconnect anybody. And today there are around 215 countries in the world. Before Iran, SWIFT had never ever disconnected a country because it does not have the mandate to do that. The organization itself is not allowed to do that. Its purpose is to connect everybody in a neutral fashion. SWIFT’s infrastructure does not know physical geographical borders. Technically there are no ‘countries’ per se in the SWIFT system; there are just SWIFT codes, a collection of which forms a country. [..] it’s a challenge to remain neutral because you are being pushed one way or the other by powerful forces.”
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