I spent the weekend reading the Geneva Report on the World Economy 2025. On the surface, it’s another study about “geopolitical fragmentation” and “payment systems.” But beneath the academic tone, the message is unsettling: the global financial order isn’t breaking - it’s being redesigned.
The report admits what few policymakers will say out loud - that the financial system itself has become a strategic weapon. Payment networks, clearinghouses and reserve systems are no longer neutral; they’re tools of power. Whoever controls the pipes controls the world’s money flow. That idea isn’t new, but the way it’s being implemented is.
According to the report, the West still dominates the architecture of global payments, despite all the talk about de-dollarization. Nearly three-quarters of all dollar reserves sit in countries formally aligned with Washington. What looks like “fragmentation” is really concentration - an illusion of diversification built on the same foundations.
What stood out to me most wasn’t the usual debate about BRICS or sanctions, but the quiet failures hidden in plain sight. The G20 promised a decade ago that all OTC derivatives would be reported for transparency. That effort, the report says, has “largely failed.” Trillions in unreported trades still move through opaque networks, invisible to regulators. That’s not a technical flaw - it’s a governance choice. And it’s the same blind spot that allows large institutions to shape markets like silver and gold through synthetic positions that never meet a delivery requirement.
One line kept echoing: “Currency optionality is now a matter of national security.” It sounds like policy jargon, but what it really means is that money itself has become a geopolitical weapon - and access to it, a privilege. That logic filters down into markets: “de-risking” isn’t about safety, it’s about control. Banks are cutting cross-border relationships not because the risk is higher, but because the leverage is more valuable. Scarcity becomes a feature, not a flaw.
Even more telling was how the researchers used GPT-4o, not to write, but to read. They trained it to scan communiqués from the G7 and BRICS for shifts in language around payment systems. The world’s top economists are now using AI to map financial power, not just policy. Think about that: artificial intelligence being deployed to measure the intent behind monetary language. It’s a new kind of transparency - one that works both ways.
The Geneva Report is cautious, but between the lines it describes a future where fragmentation isn’t a crisis - it’s a design. Parallel systems, redundant rails and alternative clearers don’t weaken control; they distribute it more subtly. The structure changes shape, but the hierarchy remains.
I finished the report with the same uneasy thought I had when I wrote about the silver market: what looks like decentralization is often the most efficient form of centralization. The control is just harder to see.
Highlights from “Geopolitical Tensions and International Financial Fragmentation (Geneva Report on the World Economy, 2025)”:
1. The Weaponisation of Financial Infrastructure
“The architecture of the global payment system is increasingly seen as a strategic asset that can be weaponised to fulfil geopolitical objectives.”
This statement implies that money flows, clearing systems and even payment standards like SWIFT or ISO 20022 are now tools of geopolitical influence, meaning that whoever controls them can choke liquidity, redirect capital or conceal flows. It echoes how large financial players can manipulate asset access and visibility, including commodities.
2. Shadow Fragmentation Behind the Illusion of Integration
“Despite the previous elements, the evidence suggests that the global cross-border payments landscape remains heavily reliant on traditional infrastructures, resulting in a high level of integration and concentration in the West. There isn’t yet a clear fragmentation or shift away from the existing system.”
Translation: While policymakers claim “multipolarity” and “de-dollarisation,” the actual rails are still Western-controlled. This concentration enables a few institutional players to see, front-run and steer transactions globally, including commodities settlements.
3. Financial Fragmentation is Not Chaos - It’s Design
“New geopolitical fault lines risk weakening the global financial safety net… yet alternative financial infrastructures, from parallel payment systems to regional lending arrangements, are emerging.”
This suggests that what looks like disorder (fragmentation, new blocs, BRICS initiatives) may actually be planned redundancy - backup systems that give large institutions optionality. The same idea applies in metals markets: parallel clearing and rehypothecation structures that mask control.
4. Currency Optionality as National Security
“Currency optionality, the ability to transact in diverse currencies, is now recognised as a matter of economic and national security.”
Liquidity access has become a geopolitical weapon. But it also means “optional” currencies and digital systems (like CBDCs, stablecoins, BRICS Clear) give institutions cover to move assets invisibly across jurisdictions - echoing the same invisible leverage games seen in silver suppression.
5. The “Governance Failure” Nobody Wants to Admit
“Despite the G20’s post-crisis commitment that all OTC derivatives trades should be reported… the broader initiative to use trade data for financial stability purposes has largely failed. It is fundamentally a governance failure and that distinction matters.”
That’s explosive: trillions in opaque OTC derivatives remain untraceable, despite supposed reforms. This opacity is exactly where institutional manipulation hides: in unreported swaps, dark pools and synthetic exposures that move silver, gold and FX under the surface.
6. A Coming “Kindleberger Moment” - the End of U.S. Leadership?
“If the United States is no longer willing or able to lead, can the euro area or European Union fill that void?”
This question exposes the crisis of monetary leadership. When no one enforces rules, the vacuum is filled by self-interested power. Historically, this is when manipulation thrives - precisely because oversight fragments faster than capital does.
7. AI Used to Track and Shape the Financial Narratives
“A large language model (LLM), specifically GPT-4o, was used to detect and quantify payment system initiatives in official G7 and BRICS communiqués.”
This is wild: policymakers themselves are now using AI to map narrative shifts in official statements. That means financial surveillance has entered a new phase, one that blends data mining and political steering. In markets, similar LLM analytics could easily be used to anticipate and manipulate flows, sentiment and asset pricing, including metals.
8. “De-risking” as a Pretext for Control
“Geopolitical tensions have prompted banks to pull back from some cross-border relationships, often due to sanctions, regulatory pressure or perceived risk - a process commonly referred to as de-risking.”
In practice, “de-risking” lets major institutions selectively cut liquidity lines, shaping which markets live or die. This creates artificial scarcity and volatility, the very conditions where profits are made through insider leverage.
9. Persistent Western Dominance in Payments and Reserves
“Nearly three-quarters of dollar-denominated FX reserves are held by countries with a formal alliance with the United States.”
The “multipolar” narrative is misleading. The West still controls the core liquidity pools, meaning that even in a fragmented world, real clearing and collateral control remain in the same hands. That’s the same asymmetric structure that allows institutional players to dictate metals pricing through paper leverage.
10. The BRICS Alternative or Parallel System?
“Nations are increasingly striving to challenge the established infrastructure and the advantages held by incumbent countries in global payment systems.”
These systems (like BRICS Clear or OmniClear) create “shadow liquidity corridors” where large players can move assets outside Western oversight. This could become the next-generation platform for discreet commodity manipulation under sovereign cover.
Bottom Line
The Geneva Report’s polite academic language hides something profound: Global finance isn’t fragmenting - it’s mutating.
Institutions are not losing control but restructuring it behind more complex, AI-enhanced, multi-rail architectures that make manipulation harder to detect and easier to justify as “geopolitical necessity.”