DBS India is the latest financial institution in the country to sign onto SWIFT’s global payments innovation (gpi) service, enabling corporate customers to track their cross-border payments in real-time.
Reports in NewsBarons on Tuesday (Aug. 14) said DBS India has rolled out the feature to its corporate customers at no additional cost. DBS customers in Singapore and Hong Kong were the first in Asia to access this capability, and the bank is now bringing it to India.
In a statement, DBS Bank’s head of global transaction services Roshan Mathew likened SWIFT’s gpi to UPI, India’s mobile-powered “Unified Payment Interface” system that allows consumers to transfer money through emails and text messages.
“As with revolutionary products like UPI, which transformed domestic payments, corporate treasurers have been eager to see innovation in cross-border payments and want efficiency and speed across all their payments,” Mathew said. “The DBS SWIFT gpi solution gives them online visibility to track payments across 62 gpi banks across the globe, and this is set to increase as more banks come on board.”
DBS noted that corporate customers do not have to call the bank’s call center to inquire about the status of their cross-border transactions. Instead, users can log-in to the FI’s online corporate banking platform, DBS IDEAL, to access information about the status and progress of these transactions, including whether the full amount of funds has been received, applied foreign exchange rates, and where a transaction currently is as it moves throughout the inter-banking system.
“By bringing real-time cross-border tracking through SWIFT gpi to India, DBS is setting a new standard in the way treasury functions are managed,” added Michael Moon, SWIFT’s head of payments markets, markets and initiatives, Asia Pacific. “Traditionally, transactions are routed through multiple banks before reaching the beneficiary, making complete trackability ... challenging, and leading to inefficiencies and increased operational costs.”
SWIFT gpi addresses those points of friction, he said, adding that the offering will increase the value of banking services for both SMBs and larger corporates in India.
DBS India claims it is the first in the country to offer corporates this capability, but, last April, India’s ICICI Bank said the same when it announced its participation in SWIFT gpi.
