SWIFT To Start Testing Enhanced Multi-Bank Standard For Cross-Border Payments

Financial messaging company SWIFT, along with a number of corporates and banks, announced Wednesday (July 25) plans to begin testing a multi-bank standard to further improve the cross-border payments experience for multi-banked corporates.

In a press release, SWIFT said the enhanced standard, which was designed and built with 10 multinational corporates and 12 leading banks, streamlines processes for corporate treasurers by allowing them to initiate and track SWIFT global payments innovation (gpi) payments to and from multiple banks in a single format, and integrate gpi flows in enterprise resource planning and treasury management systems.

“Corporates want to track payments in real time and get confirmation of credit to the beneficiary’s account,” says Marc Delbaere, global head of corporates at SWIFT, in the press release. “This new multi-bank capability will enable that experience in a consistent fashion, across multiple banks and multiple corporates. Having this information instantly in the corporate treasury space is what corporate customers are asking for.”

According to SWIFT, gpi, which was launched in the early part of 2017, boasts more than 180 banks and accounts, which make up close to 30 percent of SWIFT’s cross-border payment traffic. According to SWIFT, more than $100 billion in SWIFT gpi messages are sent each day. The corporates and banks participating in the pilot include Airbus, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, BBVA, BNP Paribas, Booking.com, Borealis, Citi, Deutsche Bank, General Electric, IATA, Intesa Sanpaolo, J.P. Morgan, LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, Microsoft, National Australia Bank, Ping An Group, Roche, RTL Group, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation, Société Générale, Standard Chartered Bank and UniCredit.

Together with the pilot participants, SWIFT has also invited leading treasury application providers to integrate gpi flows into their own systems, the company said in the release.

“We are very pleased to participate in the SWIFT gpi for Corporates pilot,” Martin Schlageter, head of treasury operations at Roche, said in the same press release. “There are many challenges to tackle with cross-border payments, but SWIFT gpi, combined with the broader SWIFT for Corporates program, will bring considerable benefits to improving the transparency and visibility of our cross-border payments.”

The standard design was developed through a series of SWIFT-led co-creation workshops with pilot banks and corporates. It supports FIN & ISO 20022 standards to allow corporates to access their payments status across SWIFT and bank proprietary channels.