Pakistani-American Banker Heads SWIFT, The World's Biggest InterBank Payments System

[RiazHaq]

Pakistani-American Banker Heads SWIFT, The World's Biggest InterBank Payments System

Pakistani-American banker Yawar Shah is the Chairman of the SWIFT Board of Directors. SWIFT stands for The Society For Inter-Bank Financial ...

www.southasiainvestor.com

Pakistani-American banker Yawar Shah is the Chairman of the SWIFT Board of Directors. SWIFT stands for The Society For Inter-Bank Financial Telecommunications. SWIFT has been in the news recently for cutting off Russian banks to punish Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Russia is now disconnected from the global financial system used to settle the vast majority of payments in international trade.

Yawar Shah. Source: SWIFT

In addition to his role as the Chairman of the SWIFT Board of Directors, Yawar is also a Managing Director in the Institutional Clients Group at Citigroup. Before joining Citigroup, Yawar was at JPMorgan for over 20 years. Positions there have included Global Operations Executive for Worldwide Securities Services, Retail Service and Operations Executive, Chief Operating Officer of the Global Private Bank, and General Manager of the Treasury Management Services business. He received his BA from Harvard College and his MBA from Harvard Business School.


Another Pakistani-American, a woman named Saira Malik, has recently been appointed the chief investment officer (CIO) of a $1.3 trillion Nuveen fund. Saira held a variety of positions since joining Nuveen in 2003. Prior to being named CIO, she was head of global equities portfolio management, and before that, head of global equities research. Previously, Saira was with JP Morgan Asset Management, where her roles included vice president/small cap growth portfolio manager and equity research analyst.

The Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) was founded in 1973 to replace the telex system. It is now used by over 11,000 financial institutions to send secure messages and payment orders. Disconnecting an entire country from SWIFT is considered the nuclear option of economic sanctions, according to South China Morning Post (SCMP). But even limited action can have a big impact. Any bank disconnected from SWIFT will have a very difficult time sending money to other financial institutions, and its customers will struggle to conduct their business.

The only alternative to SWIFT is China's CIPS, the Cross-border Interbank Payment System. CIPS was launched in October 2015 to boost international use of China’s currency in global trade settlements. The use of the yuan has increased since its inclusion in the International Monetary Fund’s Special Drawing Rights basket in 2015. In January this year, CIPS had 1,280 users across 103 countries, including 75 directly participating banks and 1,205 indirect participants. The operator said last year overseas indirect participants account for 54.5 per cent of the total.

Chinese analysts see the SWIFT sanctions on Russian banks as a wake-up call for Beijing.
“As seen from Russia’s Swift exclusion and the China-US trade friction in recent years, it is necessary to reduce reliance on Swift to ensure financial security,” Dongguan Securities analysts Chen Weiguang, Luo Weibin and Liu Menglin wrote on Monday, according to SCMP. The move to ban certain Russian banks from Swift is likely to accelerate expansion of CIPS, Beijing’s cross-border payment and settlement system, analysts say.

Pakistan's State Bank and National Bank are members of both SWIFT and CIPS. CIPS has been used by Chinese and Pakistani banks for trade settlements in Chinese Yuan. In 2018, the China-Pakistan currency swap agreement was extended for three years, and the size was doubled to 20 billion yuan or 351 billion Pakistani rupees, as China became the largest trading partner, and the bilateral trade increased on yearly basis, according to China Economic Net.

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Pakistani-American Banker Heads SWIFT, The World's Biggest InterBank Payments System

Pakistani-American banker Yawar Shah is the Chairman of the SWIFT Board of Directors. SWIFT stands for The Society For Inter-Bank Financial ...

www.southasiainvestor.com

 

[RiazHaq]

The central banks in western nations and Japan hold the bulk of the Russian foreign currency reserves which they have now frozen. But China is the single-biggest foreign holder of Russian central bank reserves as of June 30, 2021. 13.8% of the total of Russia’s reserves, held in gold and foreign currency, are located in China, roughly the same share of assets held in Chinese currency Yuan Renminbi.

Pakistani-American Banker Heads SWIFT, The World's Biggest InterBank Payments System

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[RiazHaq]

The United States is open to imposing sanctions on Russia's oil and gas flows but going after its exports now could help Moscow, the White House said on Wednesday as oil prices surged to an 11-year high and supply disruptions mounted.

U.S. weighs sanctions on Russia energy flows, but time is not 'right now'

The United States is open to imposing sanctions on Russia's oil and gas flows but going after its exports now could help Moscow, the White House said on Wednesday as oil prices surged to an 11-year high and supply disruptions mounted.

www.reuters.com

After Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the White House slapped sanctions on exports of technologies to Russia's refineries and the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, which has never launched. So far, it has stopped short of targeting Russia's oil and gas exports as the Biden administration weighs the impacts on global oil markets and U.S. energy prices.

"We don't have a strategic interest in reducing global supply of energy ... that would raise prices at the gas pump for Americans," spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre said at a White House news briefing.

The administration warned it could block Russian oil if Moscow heightens aggression against Ukraine. "It’s very much on the table, but we need to weigh what all of the impacts will be," White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki told MSNBC earlier on Wednesday.

The National Economic Council's deputy director, Bharat Ramamurti, told MSNBC that the White House does not want to make a move just yet.

"Going after Russian oil and gas at this point would have an effect on U.S. consumers and actually could be counterproductive in terms of raising the price of oil and gas internationally, which could mean more profits for the Russian oil industry," he said.

"So we don't want to go there right now."


The White House deputy national security adviser, Daleep Singh, told CNN the Biden administration was looking at cutting U.S. consumption of Russian oil while maintaining the global supply of energy.

"There are other producers in the world that could backfill for any Russian oil we don't import," Singh said.

The Biden administration has taken pains to say it has not yet targeted Russian oil sales as part of sweeping economic sanctions it has slapped on Moscow since last week. read more

Even so, traders and banks have shied away from Russian oil shipments via pipeline and tankers, so as not to be seen as funding the invasion, sending energy markets into disarray. read more

And some U.S. lawmakers have pushed legislation that analysts said could lead to higher gasoline prices.

The top Democrat and a Republican on the Senate energy committee floated a bill that would prohibit the import of Russian crude, liquid fuels and liquefied natural gas. The United States imported an average of more than 20.4 million barrels of crude and refined products a month in 2021 from Russia, about 8% of U.S. liquid fuel imports, according to the Energy Information Administration.

Democratic Senator Joe Manchin and Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski are working on getting support for their bill, a Manchin spokesperson said.

The United States did slap sanctions on Russia's oil refineries, banning the export of specific technologies, a move that could make it harder for Russia to modernize those plants. read more

Nearly one week after Moscow invaded Ukraine, U.S. crude oil ended Wednesday at $110.60 per barrel, the highest close since May 2011, while global benchmark Brent settled at its highest since June 2014, at $112.93. read more

Meanwhile, OPEC+ oil producers meeting on Wednesday agreed to stick to their modest output rises, offering little relief to the market or consumers. read more

On Tuesday, the United States and its allies agreed to release 60 million barrels of oil reserves to help offset supply disruptions.

"We want to minimize the impact on the global market place ... and the impact of energy prices for the American people," Psaki said. "We’re not trying to hurt ourselves, we’re trying to hurt President Putin and the Russian economy."

 

[RiazHaq]

Harsh economic sanctions & propaganda war against Russia are pushing Putin's back to the wall. NATO nations are becoming arms suppliers & safe havens for Ukrainian fighters. It's an extremely dangerous situation that has the potential to trigger WW3

 

[CAPRICORN-88]

The US and NATO may want to turn Ukraine into another Syria battleground.

But it won't happened as Ukraine is next to Russia.

 

[nahtanbob]

Harsh economic sanctions & propaganda war against Russia are pushing Putin's back to the wall. NATO nations are becoming arms suppliers & safe havens for Ukrainian fighters. It's an extremely dangerous situation that has the potential to trigger WW3

Ukraine is an independent country free to purchase or acquire weapons from anyone. If USA and EU want to really pick on Russia they can supply Ukraine with Rafales & F-16s Russia will be in hell of a dogfight.