IBM and Swift Partner to Deliver Payments-as-a-Service to Financial Institutions

IBM Payments Center has joined the Swift Partner Programme, creating new collaboration opportunities with Swift members.

The partnership between IBM and Swift brings together IBM’s expertise and Swift’s global reach to deliver value for financial institutions and other businesses seeking end-to-end solutions for a wide range of payment services, IBM said in a Monday (Sept. 18) press release. This collaboration aims to enables organizations to leverage the latest technology advancements and stay ahead in the rapidly evolving payments landscape.

“The payments industry is on the cusp of dramatic transformation that requires modern infrastructure and the ability to process more efficiently than ever,” Andrew Higgins, senior partner and global payments leader at IBM Consulting, said in the release. “We’re pleased to offer a solution to the global Swift community that delivers the advantages of the latest technology without the significant costs associated with development, maintenance and compliance.”

The IBM Payments Center offers a comprehensive payments-as-a-service solution that utilizes open, standards-based technologies to provide managed payment and cash management services, according to the release. This platform helps financial institutions and other businesses modernize their payment platforms and gain access to the latest cognitive and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies in a highly secure environment.

By joining the Swift Partner Programme, the IBM Payments Center can now collaborate with over 11,000 banking institutions in more than 200 countries, the release said. This partnership offers the IBM Payments Center the opportunity to efficiently deliver access, integrate, and develop new payment solutions. It provides an expanded offering of application user interfaces (API) and comprehensive access to API testing material, documentation, and accreditation status.

One of the key advantages of the IBM Payments Center is its end-to-end cloud-based Swift connectivity, per the release. This connectivity adheres to the controls defined by Swift’s infrastructure and client security programs, eliminating the need for clients to host and manage Swift’s required hardware and software.

In another recently announced partnership, IBM and Salesforce have teamed up to help clients adopt AI for customer relationship management. This partnership is designed to help customers of the two organizations accelerate AI adoption while protecting their data.

Another collaboration has brought together IBM and Adobe to help brands create content with AI. In this expanded partnership, Adobe’s enterprise clients can access IBM Consulting experts who will help them implement generative AI models for the design and creative process.