On the probable outcome of even merely calling for Russia's ejection from SWIFT

(written in 2014)

Calls to remove Russia from SWIFT could turn it from an institution into just another option, which is long overdue anyway. Either the Shanghai Cooperation Organization nations, the BRICS generally, or some combination of the two are likely to set up their own analogue to SWIFT out of necessity and as a logical outcome of their increasing financial interpenetration. 

If one isolates someone or something in order ostensibly to weaken them, and in point of fact this isolation strengthens them, then either one's assessment of the situation was wrong or one's stated reasons differed from one's actual policy. Given the West, I would say that there is a little bit of both factors at work. 

The SCO and the BRICS understand now, more than ever, that supposedly open and global institutions tend actually to be Western and closed.

The SCO's deliberate response to Western encirclement (NATO expansion, "Pivot to Asia" etc.) is actually very moderate and gradualist for two reasons which might surprise people raised on a classical-conditioning diet of demonization. One, they have so far refused to rise to the bait represented by encirclement. Two, they would seem to prefer, in general, not to set up SCO analogues to Western institutions until they are actually forced to do so by the press of circumstances.

Make no mistake, however. Serious discussion about what to do in precisely this scenario has been on the minds of Chinese and Russian leaders for years; and a policy of waiting for the West to make the first move in this or that area is not the same thing as the absence of a detailed rollout plan in the event of particular outcomes.