BRUSSELS (BNO NEWS) – Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) are examining the European Union-U.S. SWIFT agreement, which will transfer financial data for tracking and prosecuting alleged terrorists, after rejecting the first agreement four months ago, the European Parliament announced on Friday.

This week the MEPs should approve the new version of the agreement, after negotiating certain safeguards with the Council and the U.S. Treasury Department. In exchange for backing the SWIFT agreement, MEPs will set up an EU equivalent to the U.S. "Terrorism Finance Tracking Program," which will be a system that will allow the EU to analyze data in its own territory, needing only transfer data related to a specific terrorist track.

The main concern of the Parliament and the Council of Ministers was the implementation of safeguards in the system to prevent misuse of data. The U.S. has used the SWIFT network for several years to identify, locate and track down people suspected of terrorism and their financial backer.

SWIFT is a Belgian company which operates a network through which passes information (account holders and numbers and origin and destination of transfers) of some 8000 institutions in over 200 countries. is said to have 80% of the market in electronic financial transfers.

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