chinese-war.com

A 2027 U.S.–China conflict with Australia aligned to the U.S. China trade stops immediately, Taiwan exports are slowed/limited, and China launches large-scale cyber disruption in waves. This is a planning scenario, not a forecast. Planning scenario, not a forecast. No end date is set.

Financial Services & Payments — United States (Investor-Grade)

Read the Australia briefingReport date 2026-11-07

What happens

What stops, which rails keep clearing, and where a processor outage bites

  1. China trade stopping removes the cross-border credit that is actually printed. JPMorgan Chase Mainland China lending was 6.6 billion dollars inside a 13.2 billion dollar country total at 31 December 2025. Treasury total claims on Mainland China were 19,253 million dollars at end-December 2025. Neither page is a system-wide trade-finance product stock, and that product stock was not found.

    jpmorganchase.comticdata.treasury.gov

  2. Domestic card and ACH payments continue on the printed rails. Visa U.S. net revenue was approximately 39 percent of the total. ACH value posted a 7.9 percent increase to 93 trillion dollars. In China, UnionPay remains the predominant processor of domestic payment card transactions. Visa filed a Bank Card Clearing Institution application with the People's Bank of China in May 2020, and the timing remains uncertain. Dual-branded restrictions have decreased Visa's payments volume and impacted the net revenue it generates in China. No China dollar of net revenue is printed.

    sec.govnacha.org

  3. The week-1 payments break is a technology service provider in front of Fedwire, on the FEDS record. The number of bank users was greater than 50. Not all users were banks. Some were credit unions. The provider took systems offline. Users lost the usual Fedwire send path. Backups existed but were slow. Users sent 36 percent fewer payments on the first day and 16.4 percent fewer payments on average across the days of the event.

    federalreserve.gov

  4. Innocent-bystander banks are the second round inside that same paper. Receiver banks got fewer incoming payments. Smaller banks borrowed from the discount window. Larger banks borrowed in federal funds. Banks with reserves drew them down. The paper says that prevented a third-round liquidity spiral. No dollar of discount-window borrowing is printed.

    federalreserve.gov

  5. Taiwan on this industry is a bank country-exposure book, not a customer line and not a card-revenue line. Bank of America's Table 35, dollars in millions, puts Taiwan funded loans and loan equivalents at 3,233 and net country exposure at 4,334 at 30 September 2026. Those top 20 countries accounted for 91 percent of total non-U.S. exposure. The unfunded-commitments cell on the Taiwan row is an em dash, not a printed number. This is that bank's book, not the industry trade-finance stock. Treasury total claims on Taiwan were 14,155 million dollars at end-December 2025, against a Grand Total of 5,442,446 million dollars. Calculated from those two cells, Taiwan was 0.26 percent. Those Treasury cells are system total claims, not trade finance. Visa's fiscal 2025 10-K contains no Taiwan string. Taiwan is not in JPMorgan Chase's top 20 non-U.S. country exposures. A foundry share is not used. No fetched page ties chips to payment terminals.

    investor.bankofamerica.comticdata.treasury.govsec.govjpmorganchase.com

How hard, how soon

0–3 months

  • Short-horizon outage analog, in days: users sent 36 percent fewer payments on the first day, and users sent 16.4 percent fewer payments on average across the days of the event. First-day value fell 50.7 percent and would have been nearly 61 percent without the trading-day extension. This is not a year-over-year peak. The paper prints no day count.

    federalreserve.gov

  • Short-horizon payments series: December 2025 ACH volume was 3.22 billion payments, and fourth-quarter volume was 9.1 billion payments valued at 24.4 trillion dollars. The quarter is labeled as fourth quarter 2025.

    nacha.org

  • The Fedwire monthly series opened for this band is September 2026, when monthly volume growth was 7.8 percent. Monthly value growth in the same row was 6.4 percent. The page labels value in millions of dollars and was last updated on 20 October 2026. Users sent 36 percent fewer payments remains the first-day outage print, and that paper still has no day count.

    frbservices.orgfederalreserve.gov

1–6 months

  • No published one-to-six-month outage percent exists beyond the multi-day event. The quarterly bank analog, labeled second quarter 2026, is that quarterly net income was up 12.0 percent from the prior quarter, beside NIM of 3.32 percent and loan growth of 1.8 percent. These are observed quarter prints, not a war path.

    fdic.gov

12+ months

  • Full-year rail baseline: ACH value posted a 7.9 percent increase to 93 trillion dollars in 2025. Fedwire value growth was 1.3 percent. Visa net revenue increased 11 percent. The China dollar inside Visa is still unpublished.

    nacha.orgfrbservices.orgsec.gov

Wave 1

Wave 1 is the payment rail and the processor in front of it. Fedwire Funds Service, the ACH Network, payment processors, and core-banking access to Fedwire are direct. Receiver banks are indirect because they lose incoming payments without being the attacked party. The evidence is FEDS 2022-025 and the LockBit advisory's inclusion of financial services. The week assignment is a planning inference.

federalreserve.govcisa.govnacha.org

Wave 2

Wave 2 is enterprise booking that is not the Fedwire send path. The Visa card network and trade-finance systems are direct. FDIC-insured balance sheets are indirect when the loss is unpaid China-related credit rather than a core outage. This ordering is a planning inference.

sec.govjpmorganchase.comcisa.gov

Wave 3

Wave 3 is the distributed cash endpoint. ATMs and cash-access programs are direct and later. No U.S. ATM dollar was opened, so the wave is a placement, not a measured outage. This ordering is a planning inference.

sec.govcisa.gov

Country exposure

origin sharepercent

Cost and price shock by time bucket

payment changepercent

Downstream scale

fedwire transfermillions of US dollars

Operating prints

ratespercent

What to do

Day 7

  • Confirm Fedwire send paths that depend on a single technology service provider, against the studied case of greater than 50 bank users and a first-day drop in which users sent 36 percent fewer payments.

    federalreserve.gov

  • Split the China book from domestic rails. List Mainland China lending against the 6.6 billion dollar JPMorgan Chase print and total claims against 19,253 million dollars. Leave ACH and Fedwire on the continuing book.

    jpmorganchase.comticdata.treasury.govnacha.org

Day 30

  • Watch December-style ACH volume against 3.22 billion payments and Fedwire average daily value against 4,593,069 million dollars. Both lines are planning baselines, not covenants.

    nacha.orgfrbservices.org

  • Re-read Visa China as UnionPay domestic acquiring plus an unpriced dual-brand residue. Do not book a China revenue loss off the 15,633 million dollar U.S. line.

    sec.gov

Day 90

  • Compare the quarterly margin with NIM of 3.32 percent and the quarterly earnings change that was up 12.0 percent from the prior quarter. A break below the margin print is a planning line.

    fdic.gov

  • Ask whether Taiwan claims, 14,155 million dollars, are still performing if Taiwan exports are limited. Do not treat Visa as having a Taiwan revenue line. The 10-K has no Taiwan string.

    ticdata.treasury.govsec.gov

What to watch

By role

Banks and core-banking operators

  • Keep a second Fedwire send path and test it against a first day as severe as the 36 percent send drop.

  • Pre-agree discount-window and federal-funds contacts. The studied event used both, by bank size.

  • Separate Mainland China lending reports from domestic deposit reports.

federalreserve.govjpmorganchase.com

Card networks and processors

  • Treat China domestic acquiring as UnionPay's market unless a BCCI approval is printed.

  • Do not allocate a Taiwan revenue line. The fiscal 2025 10-K has no Taiwan string.

  • Segment the one client that accounted for 11 percent of Visa net revenue from the country table.

sec.gov

Trade-finance desks

  • Mark Mainland China claims to the 19,253 million dollar Treasury cell and the 13.2 billion dollar firm total.

  • Mark Taiwan claims to 14,155 million dollars and do not fill the gap with a foundry share.

  • State in the memo that a system trade-finance product stock was not published.

ticdata.treasury.govjpmorganchase.com

Payment operations

  • Watch ACH against the December print of 3.22 billion payments and Fedwire against average daily value of 4,593,069 million dollars.

  • Keep ACH available as the batch rail if wires slow, without assuming equal payment size. Average Fedwire value was 5.28 million dollars.

nacha.orgfrbservices.org

Weekly checks

What is not known

Working papers: node summary
NodePrimary impactTime horizonCyber waveEvidence
Fedwire Funds ServiceDomestic wire transfers keep the 2025 run-rate unless a service-provider outage cuts sends the way the studied event did.0-3 monthsWave 1 (direct)Fedwire 2025 annual statistics; FEDS 2022-025
ACH NetworkDomestic ACH keeps clearing. The 2025 network is the baseline, and a China stop does not shut the rail.0-3 monthsWave 1 (direct)Nacha 2025 ACH statistics
Payment processors and technology service providersA processor outage removes the usual Fedwire send path for the institutions that depend on it.0-3 monthsWave 1 (direct)FEDS 2022-025; CISA LockBit advisory
Core-banking access to FedwireUser banks send fewer Fedwire payments while their service provider is offline, even though the wire system itself is open.0-3 monthsWave 1 (direct)FEDS 2022-025 first-day and event-average sends
Receiver banksBanks that did not use the attacked provider still receive fewer incoming Fedwire payments.0-3 monthsWave 1 (indirect)FEDS 2022-025 second round
Visa card networkU.S. card volume continues, China domestic acquiring stays with UnionPay, and no other country is a 10 percent revenue book.0-12 monthsWave 2 (direct)Visa fiscal 2025 Form 10-K
Trade finance and cross-border claimsChina trade stopping hits the named Mainland China lending and banking-claims book, not domestic deposits.0-6 monthsWave 2 (direct)JPMorgan Chase 2025 Form 10-K; Treasury claims file
FDIC-insured banksThe insured system keeps a deep deposit base. Credit cost shows up if trade-finance borrowers cannot pay.1-6 monthsWave 2 (indirect)FDIC Quarterly Banking Profile, second quarter 2026
ATMs and cash accessCash-access programs sit on the card network. No U.S. ATM withdrawal census was on the pages opened, so this node is not given a dollar volume.1-12 monthsWave 3 (direct)Visa fiscal 2025 Form 10-K cash-access programs

Sources