In March 1982, the banking industry required that all bank cards (including credit and debit cards) to have been converted to cards with magnetic strips on the back. This magnetic strip holds 100,000 words of information and is read by a reader head (much like the head on a music tape deck) which feeds digital (binary code) information into the computer.

The Wall Street Journal (Nov. 5, 1985) stated: A new banking era has begun. and Citibank invites you to be in the forefront -- A Global System' linking every major city in America to a bank with a financial service network that circles the entire world S.W.I.F.T. is this global system.

S.W.I.F.T., The Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Transactions, is a vast banking network with no vault, no cash. It is a system for large transfers. Value exchanges will be ordered by these bank computers, and numbers will be juggled when any transactions are consummated. Universal Electronic Banking. The S.W.I.F.T. organization is a culmination of a range of studies initiated in 1969 with the aim of providingan improved an improved international payments system...

In May 1973, some 240 of the largest European and North American banks set up the S.W.I.F.T. organization with the aim to design, implement and operate an International Financial Network that enables member banks to be able to transmit between themselves international payments, statements and other messages associated with International Banking.

Carl Reuterskiold, S.W.I.F.T. General Manager. on Oct. 19, 1977 Stated: S.W.I.F.T. is a co-operative society created under Belgium law and registered in Brussels. It is wholly owned by the member banks, the shares being distributed at present according to anticipated traffic transmitted via the network... there is a team based in Brussels who prepare instructional material and visits countries to assist National User Groups with educational courses, seminars and workshops. Each S.W.I.F.T. country has it's own internal organization which differs according to national requirements. Most nations have national members who meet regularly to review current progress. Each country has at least on user group representative who is nominated by the users and is usually an employee of a member bank or national banking association. He is the focal point for S.W.I.F.T. liaisons. (S.W.I.F.T., F20, 160 second edition, Jan. 1977)

So what S.W.I.F.T. is, is a one world international banking system that can make sure your bill, of the items you buy in Spain, will be waiting for you when you get home, with all items listed and itemized. Also, transactions made by large corporations from the U.S. and other countries. And it's all completely done by digital electronics (1's & 0's).

The Network, in it's first phase, covers most of western Europe and North America. It's a two-center financial transaction control system. The banks connection their terminals to programmable concentrators in each country... Although each operating center features fully duplicated computer configurations, a two-centered design is used for increased security, should one center become unavailable through natural catastrophe or industrial sabotage, each configuration has enough capacity to handle the entire traffic load. (S.W.I.F.T., F20 160, Jan. 1977.)

In Future Developments of S.W.I.F.T. (1977), Burroughs Corporation wrote: The S.W.I.F.T. network cutover has now taken place. Live messages are being transmitted and, with S.W.I.F.T., Burroughs is looking forward to the time when all current member banks will be connected to the system, and beyond that, to the enclosure of other banks and other countries, until the system becomes WORLD-WIDE.

There are currently two switching centers in Europe, one in Brussels and one in Amsterdam. It was once thought the Brussels center could handle projected traffic through 1985. Currently though, the S.W.I.F.T. organization is building another switching center in Culpepper, Virginia, to help carry the load.

Dr. T. Hugh Moreton says in 'S.W.I.F.T. Banking and Business`: In Early 1982 we are ready to believe every country in the world will be connected in one way or another to S.W.I.F.T. Now it's 1997, It's my opinion that it is safe to assume that S.W.I.F.T. has probably reach that point. It would also take a few mass storage devices such as the IBM 3850, which can hold 472 billion characters of information, and probably a Cray II CPU unit.