"The Terrorist Finance Tracking Program is a United States government program to access the SWIFT transaction database, revealed by The New York Times in June 2006. It is part of the Bush administration's "Global War on Terrorism". Based in Belgium, SWIFT (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication) establish common standards for financial transactions worldwide"
May 6, 2010
Biden seeks to reassure EU over bank data anti-terror scheme
US Vice President Joe Biden attempted on Thursday to convince a reluctant European parliament to agree to a controversial bank data exchange scheme in order to counter terror ploys.
Biden, at the start of a European tour, promised the "inalienable rights" of Europeans would be preserved, something on which not all European lawmakers are convinced.
The previous framework covering the exchange of information on tens of millions of Europeans held by thousands of banks and other bodies broke down in January as rows over protection of liberties triggered a dogfight for control of the process among different EU institutions.
"I am absolutely convinced that we can succeed to both use the tool and guarantee privacy," Biden said in an address to the EU parliament in Brussels.
"It is important that we do it and it is important that we do so as quickly as possible," he added, stressing that the flow of terrorism doesn't respect borders, leaving nobody immune from the dangers.
The old Swift interbank data system, suspended this year, transmitted information on transactions from 8,000 institutions worldwide.
The system was introduced in the wake of the 9/11 attacks in the United States in 2001, to help tackle the financing of terrorism.
The scheme was vetoed at the end of last year by the European parliament which demanded stricter protection of personal information, to limit the bodies that could access it and ensure it was used only for anti-terror purposes.
"I don't blame you for questioning it, we understand your concerns," Biden told the assembled Euro MPs.
But he said that "the longer we are without the agreement, the greater the risk of a terrorist attack that could have been prevented."
Source:American Edition
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SWIFT COMPANY ~
SWIFT is the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, a member-owned cooperative through which the financial world conducts its business operations with speed, certainty and confidence. More than 9,000 banking organisations, securities institutions and corporate customers in 209 countries trust us every day to exchange millions of standardised financial messages.
Our role is two-fold. We provide the proprietary communications platform, products and services that allow our customers to connect and exchange financial information securely and reliably. We also act as the catalyst that brings the financial community together to work collaboratively to shape market practice, define standards and consider solutions to issues of mutual interest.
SWIFT enables its customers to automate and standardise financial transactions, thereby lowering costs, reducing operational risk and eliminating inefficiencies from their operations. By using SWIFT customers can also create new business opportunities and revenue streams.
SWIFT has its headquarters in Belgium and has offices in the world's major financial centres and developing markets.
SWIFT is solely a carrier of messages. It does not hold funds nor does it manage accounts on behalf of customers, nor does it store financial information on an on-going basis. As a data carrier, SWIFT transports messages between two financial institutions. This activity involves the secure exchange of proprietary data while ensuring its confidentiality and integrity.
http://www.swift.com/home/index.page?lang=en
The SWIFT secure messaging network is run out of two redundant data centers, one in the United States and one in the Netherlands. These centers share information in near real-time. In case of a failure in one of the data centers, the other is able to handle the traffic of the complete network. Currently SWIFT is building a third data center in Switzerland, which is scheduled to start operating in the second half of 2009.[4]
Once this is completed, data from European SWIFT members will no longer be mirrored to the US data center. Also called Distributed Architecture will partition messaging into two zones, the European messaging zone and the Trans-Atlantic messaging zone.[5] European Zone messages will be stored in the Netherlands and in a part of the Switzerland operating center, Trans-Atlantic Zone messages will be stored in the US and in a part of the Switzerland operating center that is segregated from the European Zone messages. Countries outside of Europe were by default allocated to the Trans-Atlantic Zone but could choose to have their messages stored in the European Zone.
The Terrorist Finance Tracking Program is a United States government program to access the SWIFT transaction database, revealed by The New York Times in June 2006. It is part of the Bush administration's "Global War on Terrorism". Based in Belgium, SWIFT (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication) establish common standards for financial transactions worldwide.
