Swiftly Losing Money

When the Shah was in charge of Iran, one could go to Iran with a Mastercard or Visa or any other major credit card or Traveler's Cheques and pretty much spend them, getting Iranian currency as change, and, upon leaving, one could change all Iranian currency back to the currency of wherever one was going next.

Then the Ayatollah took over, and the US cut Iran off from all International Finance. Anyone going to Iran had to bring US dollars, change them in Iranian currency at whatever rate Iran set, and probably be unable to change your Iranian currency back into some Internationally recognised currency when you left, because the US had complete control over all International Banking. The US built the system that allows money to move freely between nations, and so the US can cut off any nation they wish to cut off, and the US wish the Ayatollahs would go away and let the Shah come back, take over, and return all the BP oil that was stolen when the Ayatollah took over in 1979.

The two big countries where US bans the international money network that allows credit cards to work just about everywhere are Russia and Iran, but also countries like the DPRK, Cuba, Myanmar, Sudan, and a few others that have recently gone pro-US but the banking system hasn't been fully reintegrated, such as Venezuela.

But times are changing. The PRC want to trade with as many different countries as possible as easily as possible, and have set up banking networks independent of the US international monetary system (based in Belgium).

 Life is easier for those doing international transactions if one can use SWIFT, but, where there are great bargains banned by SWIFT, some are using some of the other systems, such as the PRC or the Russian system (I understand Iran now uses the PRC system to sell oil to the PRC and buy PRC manufactured products, and it makes these transactions fairly facile).

The US are determined to destroy any international monetary systems trying to compete with SWIFT, but the US are now playing against some rather large, powerful competitors, a game with which the US are not terribly familiar.

So, as of now, no one knows how this is going to turn out, but Iran and Russia are looking forward to finding out.