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Swift to Open Swiss Data Center, Reducing Financial Data that Passes through U.S.
By Brian Orsak
printAn international banking consortium under fire for sharing financial data with U.S. law enforcement agencies is opening a data processing center in Switzerland to keep European financial data in Europe. The Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, or Swift, plans to open the center by then end of 2009 as part of its effort to restructure how financial data is transmitted internationally, the Belgian-based consortium said. Swift transfers payment instructions for trillions of dollars of transactions among more than 8,000 financial institutions daily. Following the opening of the new center, European interbank messages-which can include the account numbers, names and...
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