The United States and its allies in Europe agree to limit Russia's access to the international banking system

By Carol E. Lee, Kristen Welker, Andrea Mitchell and Josh Lederman -

The United States and its allies announced an agreement on Saturday to punish Russia through SWIFT, a service that facilitates global transactions between thousands of financial institutions.

“We are committed to ensuring that selected Russian banks are removed from the SWIFT messaging system.

This will ensure that these banks are disconnected from the international financial system and harm their ability to operate globally," the leaders of the European Commission, France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States said in a joint statement.

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President Joe Biden on Thursday, announcing new US sanctions against Russia, pointed to differences among European nations on punishing Russia via SWIFT.

Doing so is "always an option," Biden said.

“But right now, that is not the position that the rest of Europe wants to take.”

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A European diplomat told our sister network NBC News that one of the reasons for the Administration's earlier reluctance to publicly push to attack Russia's access to SWIFT had centered on concerns that doing so would expose and draw attention to divisions among allies on whether to take this step.

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The person said the Biden Administration has been trying to sell the notion that US and European allies are fully united and has not wanted to get ahead of the Europeans on the SWIFT decision.

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Germany and Italy had been reluctant to include SWIFT as part of the sanctions against Russia.

could be affected if Russia were restricted or banned from using SWIFT, even if access to banks was blocked.

But

as Russia's aggression has intensified.

On Saturday, the German government publicly indicated that it may support restricting or limiting Russia's access to SWIFT in a specific way, unless it is removed altogether.