Swiss Corporates Urge Global Banks To Join SWIFT Gpi

A group of six multinational corporations in Switzerland is urging banks around the world to join SWIFT’s gpi initiative, news reports said Wednesday (July 19).

ABB, Nestle, SBB and others reportedly sent an open letter to banks promoting their support for SWIFT’s gpi (global payments innovation) initiative and urging those FIs to take part in exploring how to improve cross-border payment processes.

In their letter, reports noted, the companies highlighted some of their largest global payment hurdles, which include a lack of visibility among their treasurers and financial executives in the global payment process, into the fees deducted from the transactions or the timeframe in which payments are credited. There is also lack of visibility into whether payments are rejected and when an investigation should be launched (and who should conduct it).

The group in Switzerland wrote it “appreciates SWIFT gpi as it is targeting a long overdue, essential improvement of the customer needs for higher cross-border payment speed, transparency and end-to-end tracking.”

“With considerable industry support across the globe and an increasing number of leading transaction banks committed to the service, we are convinced that SWIFT gpi represents a major improvement in cross-border payments,” the Swiss companies stated. “The increasing number of banks going live on this service addresses the demands of corporate treasurers. Hence, banks cannot afford to not join the initiative and go live as soon as possible.”

“Our expectation is that all of our cross-border payments will be end-to-end SWIFT gpi payments in the future.”

While Swiss businesses want their banking firms to get on-board with SWIFT gpi, the initiative has also seen participation from non-bank players. Last month INTL FCStone jointed the effort, though membership remains dominated by traditional FIs. According to SWIFT, nearly 100 transaction banking firms around the globe have already signed up since the initiative went live in January.