http://www.zerohedge.com/news/enterprise-just-4-days-away-arrival-swift-cut-iran
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 03/15/2012 11:27 -0400
and more on Swift cutting off Iran's Banks on March 17th ....
http://www.haaretz.com/news/middle-east/swift-financial-network-to-cut-ties-with-iran-banks-targeted-by-eu-sanctions-1.418886
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303863404577283532862521716.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
With The Enterprise Just 4 Days Away From Arrival, A SWIFT Cut Off Of Iran
Update: as we hit print, we see headlines that the UK will cooperate with the US on bilateral agreement to release oil stocks. Crude down big on the news, which is merely an advance move ahead of almost inevitable war with Iran, simply to make the spike more palatable.
The push to get Iran to do something terminally irrational (now that USS Enterprise in its final tour of duty is almost on location just off the side of CVN-70 Lincoln and CVN-72 Vinson in the Arabian Sea, where the US will shortly have not one, not two, but three aircraft carriers) is now in its final stretch. As AP reported earlier, Iran has been now entirely cut off from the global financial system, as that anchor of international financial transactions, SWIFT, has just taken Iran off the grid. This leaves Iran with just three options for international trade: making gold into a fully convertible currency, barter, or exchanging Rials for Renminbi and other local currencies.
From the AP:
The SWIFT global financial transaction service said Thursday that it was cutting ties with Iranian banks that are subject to European Union sanctions aimed at discouraging the country from developing nuclear weapons.
The action effectively enforces EU sanction because the world's financial transactions are impossible without using SWIFT, and it will go a long way toward isolating Iran financially.
The company's name stands for Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication. It is a banking hub crucial to oil, financial transactions and other trades.
In a statement, SWIFT said the EU decision "prohibits companies such as SWIFT to continue to provide specialized financial messaging services to EU-sanctioned banks."
"Disconnecting banks is an extraordinary and unprecedented step for SWIFT," Lazaro Campos, chief executive of SWIFT, said. "It is a direct result of international and multilateral action to intensify financial sanctions against Iran."
In other words: Iran, please do your worst. And just to make it easier, the US has now stacked an entire armada of easy targets in close vicinity, which not even a naive fool can mistake anymore for prewar preparations.
Here is what the naval picture in the Arabian Sea looked like most recently, where courtesy of Stratfor we can see that not only is CVN-65 full steam ahead to its final date with history somewhere off the shores of Iran, but that LHD8 Makin Island crossed the Straits of Hormuz recently. Just because.
Virtually the entire non-parked naval fleet will be in the Arabian Sea and Persian Gulf in the next 4-6 days, where 3 aircraft carriers and one big-deck amphibious warfare ship are just waiting for the order.
and more on Swift cutting off Iran's Banks on March 17th ....
http://www.haaretz.com/news/middle-east/swift-financial-network-to-cut-ties-with-iran-banks-targeted-by-eu-sanctions-1.418886
An international network in control of the world's largest financial messaging system announced on Thursday it intends to cut off Iranian banks targeted by European Union sanctions.
The move is an unprecedented measure that will effectively prevent Iranian institutions from electronically transferring global funds.
In a statement, the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) indicated that those financial institutions hit by EU measures would be removed from the network as of Saturday, March 17.
"The new European Council decision, as confirmed by the Belgian Treasury, prohibits companies such as SWIFT to continue to provide specialized financial messaging services to EU-sanctioned Iranian banks," the statement said, adding that "SWIFT is incorporated under Belgian law and has to comply with this decision as confirmed by its home country government."
SWIFT CEO Lázaro Campos said that the EU decision to sanction Iranian banks forced "SWIFT to take action," adding, "Disconnecting banks is an extraordinary and unprecedented step for SWIFT. It is a direct result of international and multilateral action to intensify financial sanctions against Iran."
The SWIFT statement added that the network "remains in full compliance with all applicable sanctions regulations of the multiple jurisdictions in which it operates, and has received confirmation of this from the competent regulatory authorities."
"As a global provider of secure messaging services, SWIFT has no involvement in or control over the underlying financial transactions that are contained in the messages of its member banks," the statement added.
An Israeli official indicated that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu raised the issue of disconnecting the Iranian banks from the SWIFT system during his recent conversations with U.S. President Barack Obama as well as with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
According to the official, Netanyahu told Obama that "we need SWIFT swiftly."
According to the official, Netanyahu told Obama that "we need SWIFT swiftly."
In response to SWIFT's Thursday announcement, the Prime Minister's Office released a statement later in the day, saying that "prime minister Netanyahu congratulated SWIFT for its decision to cut the Iranian banks from the system."
In December, EU foreign ministers adopted new sanctions against Iran in response to the country's nuclear program, indicating that the Iran restrictive measures would pave the way for another 37 people and 143 entities to be hit with travel bans and asset freezes.
U.K. Foreign Secretary William Hague said at the time that the "intensification of economic sanctions on Iran, particularly to increase the isolation of the Iranian financial sector" should be seen in light of efforts to halt Tehran's nuclear program, and not simply as a reaction to the storming of the U.K's embassy in Tehran in January this year.
and note this also applies to Iran's Central Bank....http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303863404577283532862521716.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
The Belgium-based Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, or Swift, a financial communication and clearing system used by most of the world's major banks, said it would comply with the EU order.
The ban applies only to Iran banks that the EU has placed on a sanctions blacklist. They include Iran's central bank and more than a dozen other firms.
The U.S. Congress, meanwhile, is asking transactions with all Iranian banks to be ended, and is threatening penalties against Swift's board and directors if they don't cut all ties with Iran's financial sector. U.S. lawmakers argue that Iran is shifting funding for its nuclear program out of the sanctioned banks into other firms.
An EU statement said the European Council of member states "agreed that no specialized financial messaging shall be provided to those persons and entities subject to an asset freeze." The measure will be published in the EU's Official Journal on Friday.
and...
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