It is believed that the close relationship between the two nations, especially from a financial point of view, could hamper the international trade of the South American country in several ways.
The announcement of the partial expulsion of Russian banks from the SWIFT Society for Worldwide Financial and Interbank Communications system moved public opinion in Venezuela.
On the one hand, specialists in economics and finance warned that the financial engineering structure created by the Venezuelan government to evade its own sanctions would be obstructed, since it relies fundamentally on Russian banks.
Meanwhile, the leader of the government, Nicolás Maduro, pointed out that his country "does not depend on the SWIFT system."
Russia's expulsion of Swift
On March 2, the exclusion of seven of the main Russian banks from the SWIFT system was made official. It is a measure classified as the "financial nuclear weapon", and considered as the largest global economic sanction. Until this week, only Iran had been subject to this measure, in 2012.
SWIFT is a platform that interconnects international banking, since it works as a messaging system that allows cross-border interbank movements to be validated. Connect 11,000 financial institutions in more than 200 countries. For the year 2019, around 36.7 million financial messages were sent daily through the platform, which denotes its relevance for banks globally.
But there are two clarifications to make about the expulsion of Russian entities from SWIFT. The first is that it has not yet entered into force, since the measure will be activated 10 days after its publication in the Official Journal of the European Union. This period will allow the completion of transactions that are already in progress.
Second, Russia's two largest banks, Sberbank and Gazprombank, were not excluded from the SWIFT system. These entities are intermediaries in much of the Russian energy trade with the European Union, which is why opinions arose that described the sanction as "lukewarm" or ineffective.
It should be noted that Gazprombank has been identified as the recipient of international payments from Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA). This implies that the Venezuelan government could have some room for maneuver while it looks for alternatives to resolve the payment to suppliers and the collection of its oil exports.
How do the sanctions on Russian banks affect Venezuela?
As mentioned, in 2019, when the Central Bank of Venezuela and PDVSA were sanctioned by the US, the Nicolás Maduro regime designed an operation that would allow it to continue collecting its oil bills and paying suppliers through the Russian financial system.
The economist José Guerra was one of the first to warn that Venezuela could have a set of accounts in different Russian banks, where it would be receiving payments for oil exports. According to Guerra, PDVSA triangulates money from its accounts in Russia to the Swiss, French or German financial system to pay international suppliers.
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