Excluding Russia from global banking’s SWIFT messaging system was always seen as an extreme option to punish President Vladimir Putin for his actions in Ukraine. Some were reluctant to impose it; France’s finance minister called it “the financial nuclear weapon.” Yet on Feb. 26, the U.S. and its allies put aside fears over the potential hit to their own economies and moved to shut a group of Russian lenders out of the network. That left bankers and diplomats racing to grasp the repercussions for everything from energy exports to debt and currency markets.

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