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Sapin said that the SWIFT system had two computer servers, one
in Europe and one in the United States, but that Europe
currently relied on U.S. authorities to collect and analyze the
vast amounts of data flowing through it to detect security
issues.
"We Europeans don't have the capacity to exploit our own data. I
don't think this can carry on this way," Sapin told a news
conference. "Since we do not have the means to analyze the data
located in Europe, we transfer all of this data to the
Americans, who have the capacity to analyze it."
Efforts to curb financing of militant groups have intensified
since the attacks in Paris on Nov. 13 by Islamic State-backed
gunmen and bombers.
Belgian-based SWIFT, or Society for the Worldwide Interbank
Financial Telecommunications, operates services transmitting
letters of credit, payments and securities transactions among
9,700 banks in 209 countries.
SWIFT says on its website that it is subject to binding requests
to provide the U.S. Treasury with data from its European server
"for the purpose of the prevention, investigation, detection or
prosecution of terrorism or terrorist financing".
(Reporting by Michel Rose; Writing by Leigh Thomas; Editing by
Andrew Callus and David Stamp)
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