SWIFT, the interbank messaging network which is the backbone of international finance, said it planned to cut off the remaining North Korean banks still connected to its system, as concerns about the nation’s nuclear program and missile tests grow.
SWIFT said the four remaining banks on the network would be disconnected for failing to meet its operating criteria.
The bank-owned cooperative declined to specify what the banks’ shortcomings were or if it had received representations from any governments.
Experts said the decision to cut off banks that were not subject to EU sanctions was unusual and a possible sign of diplomatic pressure on SWIFT.
Belgium-based SWIFT has previously refused to cut off Burmese, Russian or Syrian banks that were subject to sanctions by other countries, citing a policy of remaining politically neutral.
SWIFT ignored years of pressure linked to Iran’s nuclear program and only cut off Iranian banks in 2012 after the EU passed specifically tailored sanctions.
SWIFT is overseen by the central bank of Belgium, which is subject to EU law.
“The DPRK [Democratic People’s Republic of Korea] banks remaining on the network are no longer compliant with SWIFT’s membership criteria,” spokeswoman Natasha de Teran said.
“As a result, these entities will no longer have access to the SWIFT financial messaging service. Given the increased ongoing international attention on the DPRK, SWIFT has informed the Belgian and EU authorities,” she said in a statement
Last week, the Belgian authorities said they would no longer allow SWIFT to provide services to North Korean banks that were under UN sanctions.
That followed a UN report last month that said North Korea was relying on continued access to the international banking system to flout sanctions imposed in relation to its nuclear program.
Former SWIFT chief executive Leonard Schrank said the only previous occasions he could remember when SWIFT had cut off banks not subject to EU sanctions was when the banks had lost their banking license or a country’s central bank had ceased functioning.
“This is a very, very serious action,” he said, adding it could open SWIFT up to pressure in respect of other countries.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained