SWIFT (the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication) is a global payments system that is used internationally to inter-connect banks and for the execution of financial transactions and payments between banks worldwide. It is registered as a cooperative society under Belgian law and is owned by the member financial institutions.
Due to the spying by foreign agencies of SWIFT transactions by CIA, NSA and Europol and its increasing use in economic sanctions by west (US and EU), some countries have begin developing alternate international financial systems to avoid and replace SWIFT for international transactions.
These include the Chinese Cross-Border Interbank Payment System (CIPS), the Indian Structured Financial Messaging System (SFMS), the Russian Sistema peredachi finansovykh soobscheniy (SPFS) etc.
In this context,
Where sanctions have been imposed barring use of SWIFT, can European banks use any of these alternative systems to be able to do business with other countries despite U.S. sanctions?
How do the U.S., and other western governments, perceive the rise of these non-western alternative financial system and have they formed any policies on how to deal with these non-western financial systems that may be used to bypass western sanctions?