Ebury First FinTech To Use SWIFT gpi

SWIFT, the provider of the secure financial messaging system, announced Thursday (August 30) that Ebury has become the first FinTech to go live with SWIFT’s global payments innovation (gpi).

In a press release, SWIFT said the move is an important milestone for SWIFT gpi, given it’s getting new FinTech players in addition to traditional banks. The company said that by adding Ebury as a customer it underscores the widespread appeal of the new service. “It’s great to see Ebury up and running on gpi as the first FinTech to offer a transformed and faster cross-border payments experience to their diverse customer base. It’s clear that the benefits of gpi are being recognized not just by the global banks and corporates who are already using it, but now FinTechs. Ebury was early to spot the enormous advantages that gpi can bring to customers and has acted fast in completing testing and going live,” said Harry Newsman, head of banking at SWIFT, in the press release.

According to SWIFT, half of the gpi payments are credited within thirty minutes — with many happening within seconds — and close to all complete within 24 hours. That, said the company, enables Ebury’s clients to fast track their international payments and to monitor and track their payments in real time across the globe. “We have been excited about gpi since the beginning and immediately recognized how it could
help improve our value proposition to businesses trading internationally, in particular our NGO and SME customers. It has the additional benefit of improving our own operations; with gpi, our payment confirmations to beneficiaries are showing within minutes, sometimes seconds. We are incredibly pleased to confirm we are now live after going through testing,” said Mark Hewlett, wholesale banking relationship director at Ebury, in the same press release.

SWIFT noted in the press release that currently more than 200 financial institutions around the world are signed up to SWIFT gpi, with more than $100 billion in SWIFT gpi payments being sent daily across more than 500 international payment corridors – representing over a third of all SWIFT payments.
Following the SWIFT community’s recent decision to move ahead with global gpi adoption, SWIFT said SWIFT gpi will be the standard for all cross-border payments by the end of 2020.