SWIFT network.

In plain English

SWIFT is a member-owned cooperative that runs the standardized messaging system banks use to instruct each other about cross-border payments, securities transfers, and trade finance. A message tells another bank what to do, while the money moves separately through correspondent bank accounts and domestic settlement systems. Every institution has a unique identifier code used to address those messages. Because nearly every international bank connects to it, cutting an institution or a country off from the network makes cross-border banking slow and awkward, which is why access has been used as a sanctions tool.

01Why it matters

When an international wire takes days and arrives smaller than you sent it, the delay and the shrinkage come from the chain of correspondent banks executing the instruction, not from the message itself.

02The math, step by step

Say you wire 5,000 dollars abroad. Your bank charges 45 dollars, an intermediary deducts 20 dollars, the receiving bank takes 15 dollars, and a 2 percent exchange markup costs 100 dollars. The recipient gets about 4,820 dollars, so 3.6 percent went to the chain.

Illustrative example. The amounts here are hypothetical, chosen to show how the math works, not real quoted rates or figures.

03What this is NOT

04Receipts

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