* SWIFT, the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, allows banks to talk to each other and authorise money flows.

* An average of 42 million payments and securities transactions are processed every day on the world's leading platform for financial institutions.

* A secure global messaging system connects Australia and more than 200 other countries to thousands of banks and other financial organisations around the world.

* Australia has strongly supported cutting off Russia's access to the SWIFT international payments system.

* Excluding Russian banks from SWIFT makes it harder for Russian individuals and Russian companies to make international payments.

* "That would add to the high cost that Russia faces and that it should pay for its invasion of Ukraine," Foreign Minister Marise Payne has said.

* But Australia could not take action to cut off Russia from the system, because it operates like an international cooperative.

* Based in Belgium, SWIFT is incorporated under Belgian law and must comply with European Union regulations.

* The European Commission, France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States have issued a Joint Statement on Further Restrictive Economic Measures, including banking.

* Selected Russian banks will be removed from the SWIFT messaging system to disconnect them from the international financial system and harm their ability to operate globally.

* Further, restrictive measures will prevent the Russian Central Bank from deploying its international reserves in ways that undermine the impact of sanctions.

* Measures will also limit the sale of citizenship, so called golden passports, that allow wealthy Russians connected to the Russian government to become citizens elsewhere and gain access to financial systems.

* A transatlantic task force will be launched in the coming week to identify and freeze the assets of sanctioned individuals and companies.

* A SWIFT Code is used to make an international payment from your account to an overseas account.

* A SWIFT Code or Bank Identifier Code is made up of 8 to 11 characters and is used by banks around the world to recognise each other and authorise the transfer money.

* When Iran was booted off SWIFT, the country lost a third of their foreign trade and half of their oil export revenue.

Australian Associated Press