Britan has proposed that Russia be blocked from accessing the SWIFT international banking system. The country is to insist that the European Union block Russia’s access to the SWIFT banking system as part of a new round of sanctions. The British government has officially announced that such a step be taken. SWIFT currently links more than 10,000 banking and financial service organizations in 210 countries around the world, and there are more than 600 participants, including the Bank of Russia. According to experts, if blocked from SWIFT, Russian banks will not be able to manage their correspondent accounts abroad and currency payments will also be affected since all of the information is transmitted via SWIFT. However, analysts, feel that Western politicians do not have the goal of cutting off all payments to and from Russia because then there would be no way to pay for supplies of energy resources, which would mean there might be no supplies. This could also stimulate Russia, and even China, to create its own payment system for transferring money between banks in various countries.