Big Banks Say ‘Yes’ To SWIFT’s X-Border Payments Initiative

SWIFT, the collective that spans more than 10,800 financial institutions, banks and corporate customers, said Thursday (Jan. 21) that 45 new banks have signed on to the global payments innovation initiative.

According to a release, the banks are located across several regions, including Asia-Pacific, the Americas and Europe.

The initiative, which was announced at the end of last year, looks to boost cross-border transactions by using SWIFT’s messaging platform. The collaboration between SWIFT members has given rise to a service-level agreement that focuses on B2B payments. Key attributes include the same-day use of funds, payments tracking and cross-payment information. As has been reported, the pilot program will begin early this year. Key initiatives through the rest of the program will focus on compliance, liquidity and cross-border processing efficiencies.

[bctt tweet=”The initiative, which was announced at the end of last year, looks to boost cross-border transactions by using SWIFT’s messaging platform.”]

SWIFT said in its release that the roster of banks includes, alphabetically:

ABN AMRO Bank, Australia and New Zealand Banking Group, Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Bank of China, Bank of New York Mellon, Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ, Banco Santander, Barclays, BNP Paribas, Citibank, Commerzbank, Credit Suisse, Danske Bank, DBS Bank, Deutsche Bank, Ecobank, FirstRand Bank, HSBC, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, ING Bank, Intesa Sanpaolo, JPMorgan Chase, KBC Bank, KEB Hana Bank, Lloyds Banking Group, Maybank, Mizuho Bank, National Australia Bank, Natixis, Nordea Bank, Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation, Raiffeisen Bank International, RBC Royal Bank, Royal Bank of Scotland, Sberbank, SEB, Société Générale, Standard Chartered, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation, TD Bank, UBS, UniCredit, United Overseas Bank and Wells Fargo.

In a statement that accompanied the release, Natalia Blatter, with UBS Switzerland AG, CIC Transaction banking, said that the banking community at large “must strive forward to find a more efficient alternative to today’s correspondent banking model. We have to address our corporate clients’ growing need for more transparent, faster and cheaper cross-border payments, while, at the same time, increasing regulatory requirements and business profitability. We are very excited to see SWIFT launching the innovative global payments innovation initiative, which has the potential to leverage existing infrastructure for cross-border payments in a modern way.”