The world should wake up from tech dependence. Let the EU massively invest in FOSS.
Edit: as raised by comments, my title is not incorrect but does omit that it’s actually the US that imposed sanctions, to which MS just complies.
The world should wake up from tech dependence. Let the EU massively invest in FOSS.
Edit: as raised by comments, my title is not incorrect but does omit that it’s actually the US that imposed sanctions, to which MS just complies.
The only one of those that both exists and competes with SWIFT as an international banking infrastructure is CIPS, and that already existed prior to the Russian sanctions. The entire world didn’t do anything in response to Russian sanctions, China saw an opportunity and used it to promote the alternative it already had and already wanted to expand.
On top of that SWIFT doesn’t even do payments. That is, it doesn’t transfer money, it provides a communication interface that banks use to talk about payments, the actual money transfer takes place separately via T2 (in Europe) or elsewhere via correspondent accounts.
If they tried to handle actual money they would not have the market share that they have. Iran is semi-sanctioned right now, that is, select banks are cut off. It’s illegal under EU law to comply with US sanctions against US or Cuba so you can be sure that the commission came up with the precise list of what to block and what not so they’d hit the revolutionary guard but not random carpet or saffron traders.