Re: <nettime> Statement by Banca Etica regarding the forced closure of the Autistici/Inventati account

[Geoffrey Goodell via nettime-l <nettime-l@lists.nettime.org>]

Dear Lorenzo and all,

Accounts offer a highly effective mechanism by which the powerful can use to
prey on the weak.  Here is how it works: Those in power threaten the account
provider, rather than individual account holders.  Then the account provider is
forced to consider what would happen to all of its account holders if the party
doing the threatening were to deny service to the provider wholesale.  Finally,
the account provider capitulates.  Notice the amplification intrinsic to this
attack.  One might imagine that account providers are better equipped than
individuals to resist threats, but it is precisely the size of the account
provider that makes the attack so devastating.  This is judo at its most lethal.

In this context, it should be clear that a string of American governments have
used the proliferation of card payments for political leverage.  Specifically,
the mechanisms of card payments are explicitly designed to ensure that
substantially all digital payments are between custodial accounts, thus
providing a vehicle by which powerful political actors can exercise control over
account holders.  The fact that the American corporations operate the
infrastructure helps, of course, but it is not essential.  The feature that
benefits American government actors most saliently is the fact that there are
account providers that can be threatened.  In case the truth of this claim is
not obvious, consider vigilante Internet blocklisting services.  If enough
carriers find it easier to pay (protection money to) the blocklisting services
than to establish rigorous, just processes that require the gathering of
evidence, mediation in support of a cure, and the opportunity for appeal, then
the blocklisting services will have tremendous power over all of the other
carriers, not only the ones who subscribe to their services.  Generally the
blocklisting services promise to list carriers who fail to control abuse from
their customers.  However, by wielding the power to make their subscribers drop
the traffic of any carrier, those who deliver the blocklisting services could
threaten any carrier for any reason, or for no reason.  One might argue that the
subscribers are lazy or greedy, but in fact, they are acting in their best
interests.  This is the tragedy of the commons, and similar power accrues to
those in any position to deny businesses access to key markets.  So it is with
American governments and providers of account-based payment services.

Unsurprisingly, some government actors within the European Union are complicit
in this behaviour, supporting international efforts, such as those promoted by
the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), to establish digital payments
infrastructure with centralised control and strong surveillance mechanisms that
depend upon all transacting parties to operate via accounts with regulated
custodians, and to require all digital payments to use that infrastructure.

The abuse of payments infrastructure, therefore, should have been anticipated
for a long time.  The US has actively cultivated its leverage not only via
institutions, such as SWIFT, and trans-national organisations, such as FATF, but
more generally, by encouraging the establishment of regulations and operational
controls that require the use of accounts for everything.  Accounts imply the
existence of someone who can be pressured economically: "You must honour our
blocklisting practices if you want to continue to provide service to your own
customers."  The power here is not merely about excluding their customers from
doing business with counterparties in the US, but also about excluding their
customers from doing business domestically and with counterparties in third
countries as well.  After all, the consequences of being blocklisted are
dreadful indeed.

One might argue that in the case of payments (Visa, Mastercard, SWIFT), just
like DNS (ICANN), the outsized control afforded to the US is the result of
actually controlling the infrastructure and governance institutions directly.
This is an interesting idea, but wrong.  To see why, it is worth considering
what would happen if the US did not have direct control of the infrastructure.
In 2025, the US Trade Representative responded [1] to the rise of QRIS, a
home-grown push payment system in Indonesia [2, 3], by accusing the government
of Indonesia, of blocking access to US payment service providers, despite the
fact that Visa and Mastercard were involved in developing QRIS, in strongly
worded terms that implicitly threatened trade sanctions or curtailment of
favourable conditions for trade.  This is a blunter instrument, to be sure, but
still highly effective.

And so, what options does the EU have?  Building an EU-centric payment scheme
will not do, so long as the US (or any powerful actor in the future, really) can
threaten it with blacklisting from global payment hubs.  And so, we have:

(1) Actively promote the availability, acceptance, and use of cash and cash
infrastructure, to blunt the impact of potential actions;

(2) Develop alternatives to SWIFT for cross-border flows via mechanisms that do
not require both counterparties to use accounts;

(3) Develop and promote self-custody technology and services, so that
individuals have a way to transact without custodians, so that there is no
incentive to threaten custodians by invoking the prospect of harm to their
customers, and so that the form of leverage that results from the use of
accounts does not become an inexorable feature of the digital economy.

Having money might be a privilege, but spending money that one has is a right,
not a privilege.  Privileges, by definition, can always be taken away from the
weak by the strong.

Best wishes --

Geoff

[1] https://ustr.gov/sites/default/files/files/Press/Reports/2025NTE.pdf

[2] https://www.thejakartapost.com/opinion/2025/06/02/us-labels-qris-a-trade-barrier-whats-next-for-indonesias-digital-payment-system.html

[3] https://finance.detik.com/berita-ekonomi-bisnis/d-7876614/kebijakan-qris-hingga-pembatasan-ekuitas-asing-dinilai-as-hambat-perdagangan

On Wed, 02 Sep 2026 at 04:17:59PM +0200, Lorenzo Tripodi via nettime-l wrote:
> Also, a couple interesting contributions from the Wu Ming collective. (I let you do the DeepL translation).
> 
> 'We don???t usually publish articles on Giap two days in a row. When we break this rule, it???s because there???s an emergency ??? like a bomb has fallen on our house.
> The attack that Autistici/Inventati is currently facing is a barrage of bombs being dropped on our homes, our meeting places, and our political and trade union headquarters.
> Following Luca Casarotti???s article on the legal aspects of Trump???s move <https://www.wumingfoundation.com/giap/2026/09/attacco-ad-autistici-inventati/>, here is one by Alberto Di Monte, also known as Abo, perhaps the most detailed piece published so far. The situation is evolving and deteriorating rapidly; the affair has enormous implications ??? it concerns the answers to the question: who controls the tools we use to communicate? ??? and has far-reaching repercussions."
> https://www.wumingfoundation.com/giap/2026/09/come-si-e-arrivati-allattacco-usa-contro-autistici-inventati/???
> Il nemico ?? la rete che non ti spia. Storia dell'attacco ad Autistici/Inventati
> wumingfoundation.com
> 
> 
> 
> Lorenzo
> 
> > On 2. Sep 2026, at 09:56, Patrice Riemens via nettime-l <nettime-l@lists.nettime.org> wrote:
> > 
> > 
> > (In olden days I would have ended with 'translated by yrs truly', but I have been made redundant by
> > Deepl.com. What's left is the boring job of c+p-ing a text in free version compatible chunks)
> > 
> > The original is here:
> > 
> > https://www.bancaetica.it/area-stampa/autistici-inventati-banca-etica-condanna-uso-improprio-ofac-valutazioni-per-non-chiudere-il-conto/
> > 
> > refer to it for the high-lighted parts in the original text as the translation is in plain text.
> > 
> > CiaoCiao, p+2D!
> > 
> > -----------------------
> > 
> > Banca Etica and the sanctions imposed on Autistici/Inventati: no to the use of anti-terrorism legislation against dissent. Urgent institutional responses are required.
> > 
> > On Friday 28 August 2026, news broke of the US administration???s decision to add the Italian collective Autistici/Inventati to the so-called OFAC lists, as part of measures aimed at ???countering the growing threat posed by violent far-left terrorist groups???. Autistici/Inventati is a Tuscan collective that develops independent IT services and provides email addresses, websites, blogs and newsletters to other activists and collectives. The Autistici/Inventati association has held an account with Banca Etica since 2018: the current account has always operated normally without raising any concerns from an anti-money laundering perspective, to the extent that it has remained within the medium-risk category. Following the US administration???s decision to designate A/I as a terrorist organisation, Banca Etica contacted Autistici/Inventati to inform them that, in effect, the bank is obliged to raise the risk profile and temporarily suspend the current account pending further investi
 gation; unfortunately, it is likely that the account will soon have to be closed. 
> > 
> > Banca Etica is currently contacting the banking trade associations (ABI; Assopopolari) and the Ministry of Economy and Finance (MEF) to ascertain whether there are any viable solutions that would allow Banca Etica to keep the Autistici/Inventati current account operational without jeopardising the accounts of Banca Etica???s other 130,000 customers and members. Banca Etica is also seeking further technical advice to assess the scope for manoeuvre permitted by the US measure.
> > 
> > In the absence of any ruling or guidance from Italian and European institutions on how a bank can protect itself in such cases, an Italian bank that maintains relations with an entity included on the OFAC lists could be subject to ???secondary sanctions???, which entail the cessation of all services provided by US intermediaries: this would mean that all Banca Etica customers would be unable to use credit and debit cards (which currently rely on a virtual monopoly held by US operators) and would be unable to make payments outside the eurozone, for which financial intermediaries ??? almost always US-based ??? are required. Such an operational block would cause intolerable harm to the bank???s customers and would jeopardise the very survival of the bank.
> > 
> > Banca Etica:
> > 
> > -- strongly condemns the use of inclusion on OFAC lists for political purposes and the imposition of the associated sanctions outside the strict scope of the original mandate of these measures, which were established to combat criminal and terrorist activities
> > 
> > -- once again calls, with even greater urgency, for European and national political institutions to combat the abuse of such instruments, so that European citizens and organisations are not targeted by the improper use of these sanctions;
> > emphasises the need to mitigate the impact of the current dominance of global digital financial infrastructures by major US operators, as the extreme interdependence of banking systems effectively makes such unilateral sanctioning measures binding on European operators as well, even where they are unlawful and detrimental to European citizens or entities.
> > 
> > These are crucial issues for democracy and respect for human rights, on which Banca Etica, together with the European Federation of Ethical and Alternative Banks, has been seeking answers from Italian and European institutions for months, ever since the US added the UN Special Rapporteur on the Palestinian Territories and the judges of the International Criminal Court to the OFAC lists. Banca Etica will continue to play its part in fostering international and institutional mobilisation to put an end to this unacceptable practice of targeting those with political views differing from those of the current US administration, equating them with terrorists and effectively excluding them from the financial system.
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > -- 
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> -- 
> # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission
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