SWIFT gpi Used For More Than Half Of Cross-Border Traffic

SWIFT said Tuesday (December 18) that its SWIFT gpi payment service is being used for more than half of SWIFT’s cross-border traffic.

In a press release, SWIFT said that 55 percent of SWIFT’s cross-border traffic has been via SWIFT gpi, with hundreds of billions in payments sent every day from hundreds of financial institutions, including the 60 largest banks in the world. “Through gpi, SWIFT and its community have managed to radically innovate the very core of correspondent banking, in what has been the biggest innovation in SWIFT’s 40 year history,” said SWIFT Chief Marketing Officer Luc Meurant in a press release providing the business update. “The pace of its adoption since its launch in early 2017 is particularly impressive; less than two years since its launch, gpi is rapidly becoming the cross-border standard. It was designed, developed and deployed in record time, and the industry has responded to it with huge enthusiasm, enabling us to move towards universal adoption by the end of 2020.”

According to SWIFT, the SWIFT gpi service has improved the customer experience in cross-border payments by boosting speed, transparency and the traceability of payments. The company noted that more than 50 percent of SWIFT gpi payments are made within thirty minutes and almost 100 percent of payments within 24 hours. What’s more, SWIFT said global adoption of SWIFT gpi picked up throughout 2018 as big banks from across the globe joined the service and led SWIFT to announce in June that it would move to universal gpi adoption by the end of 2020. At that point, all 10,000 banks on the SWIFT network can offer same day payments with full tracking.  “The increased speed offered by gpi benefits banks as well as their end customers,” added Meurant. “For banks, it helps to reduce the capital requirements needed to support international payments, while for banks’ end customers it frees up cash and enables goods to move faster. The service has dramatically enhanced the customer experience by eliminating many of the issues that have previously led to time-consuming and costly enquiries. The transparency it enables not only reduces the total number of inquiries, but also the time needed to handle those that are left.”