The SWIFT global payment system will be ready to comply with the decision of the United States and the EU to disconnect some Russian banks from it if it receives an appropriate instruction, the system said in a statement, NBC reported.

"We are engaging with European authorities to understand the details of the entities that will be subject to the new measures and we are preparing to comply upon legal instruction," SWIFT said in a statement quoted by NBC on Sunday.

Earlier, the United States, EU, France, Germany, Italy, Britain and Canada announced in a joint statement that they had agreed to remove individual Russian banks that fell under Western sanctions from the SWIFT system.

A representative of the U.S. administration said that the disconnection from SWIFT may not affect Russian banks through which payments for energy supplies are made. He said that when preparing a list of banks that will be disconnected from SWIFT, those will be selected through which payments related to energy carriers do not pass.