Last year, U.S. lawmakers succeeded in pressuring Belgium-based SWIFT electronic payment system to block Iranian transactions.

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There is an inexorable logic to an electronic payment system.

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Iran's banks have been able to dodge a ban on carrying out global transactions through the Swift electronic-payment system, Swift officials said.

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The next day, they met for smoothies in Palo Alto and came up with the idea that became PayPal: a system of electronic payment designed to make e-commerce easy, consistent, and secure.

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In some ways, it will be less difficult with the integration of gold into the financial system already through electronic payment systems.

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