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Comment by drumhead | Hacker News Reader

Which system would you trust? SWIFT or something controlled by China? I have a feeling the China based system would be used far more often politically than SWIFT ever would, especially against those that China deemed to be problematic to them.

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>especially against those that China deemed to be problematic to them.

I don’t see how this is any different than what the US has already done. The US has now cut off Iran and Russia from SWIFT in political moves. Any nation state is likely already doing the calculus.

The difference is China would likely cut off banks and countries who “hurt the feelings of the Chinese people”, i.e., refer to Taiwan as a country, or refuse to recognize the 9-dash line, or comment on their human rights abuses.

it won't be a matter of trusting one over the other; smart thing banks will do is register accounts with as many payments systems as are available, in order to mitigate unforeseen future risk.

Right, people here seem to think it's putting money into SWIFT or some alternative system. SWIFT doesn't hold or keep money, it just process them.

that's right, its a bank to bank messaging service. Significant mainly because its a monopoly but totally replicable, just no one has really had much reason to. Though US sanctioning targeted states has made more countries aware of the vulnerability. This episode will see a mushrooming of alts as each significant economy builds at least a failsafe - failure to do is would be gross dereliction of duty at this point

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