The European Union has banned seven Russian banks from the Society for world wide interbank financial telecommunication (SWIFT) global system that underpins cross-border payments. But it spared two financial institutions in Russia because they are key to transactions for EU energy imports.<br />''<br />''The EU left out Gazprombank and Sberbank from its move Wednesday to disconnect parts of the Russian financial industry from the SWIFT secure messaging network.<br />''<br />''The exemption of those two banks underscores the bloc's reliance on Russian energy and the two financial institutions' central role in managing payments for that business.<br />''<br />''The seven banks targeted by the latest EU sanctions against Russia over its invasion of Ukraine are: Bank Otkritie, Novikombank, Promsvyazbank, Rossiya Bank, Sovcombank, VEB and VTB.<br />''<br />''Gazprombank and Sberbank are, however, subject to other sets of EU financial sanctions against Russia that began in 2014 when the Kremlin annexed the Ukrainian region of Crimea.<br />''<br />''<br />