CIPS is three orders of magnitude smaller than SWIFT. Even for large institutions that reduced network size introduces tons of overhead & risk to their transfers. You don’t just pivot on a dime with bank corridors.

But the other sanctions are an important part of the mix as well. No matter how you receive your payment instructions if your local government has banned the money movement it won’t go through (modulo money laundering & dodgy banks). This is we’re Chinas lack of sanctions might help. But what do you do as a large organization with the money in a Chinese bank now? You still can’t pay for EU goods with it.

The sanction mesh very effectively makes “high finance” for Russian corporations and international corps doing business there slower and more risky. Will it touch the trillion dollars Putin and gang have looted & hidden? Probably not but what could?

If you want to complain about something the carve out for energy financing is the big one. It shows that the EU wasn’t really ready to sacrifice to hurt Russia. Which is understandable in a real politik way.