Previously, low-value international payments experienced limited cost transparency and uncertainty over settlement timelines. Leveraging the new SWIFT Go service, BNY Mellon acted as an intermediary for a payment between QNB AlAhli Egypt, the remitting bank, and Shanghai Pudong Development Bank, the beneficiary bank. Delivery of funds to the beneficiary and confirmation to the originating bank were achieved in less than three hours. A cross-border transaction between Egypt and China had previously taken over two days.
Businesses and consumers around the world have faced challenges when making smaller international payments, which include limited transparency over costs and uncertainty over when the funds will be delivered. In July 2021, BNY Mellon announced it was one of the first US bank to support SWIFT Go, a service that allows financial institutions to facilitate efficient and reliable cross-border payments between consumers or small and medium-sized companies.
The payment from Egypt to China is the latest milestone in BNY Mellon's commitment to streamline and transform global payments. In May 2021, BNY Mellon launched a real-time electronic bill (e-bill) and payment solution. BNY Mellon was also one of the first bank to provide Request for Payment (RFP) messaging capabilities.
SWIFT Go enables financial institutions to offer payments for low value transactions often initiated by small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to pay suppliers overseas, and by consumers sending money to friends and family internationally. Using tighter service level agreements between institutions and pre-validation of data, SWIFT Go enables banks to provide their end customers a fast and predictable payments experience with upfront visibility on processing times and costs.
SWIFT Go was developed in collaboration with the global SWIFT community. Seven global banks, which collectively handle 33 million low-value cross-border payments per year, were already live in 2021, when the service was launched. The live banks are BBVA, Bank of New York Mellon, DNB, MYBank, SberBank, Société Générale, and UniCredit.
The service builds on the rails of SWIFT gpi, that connects more than 11,000 institutions, and 4 billion accounts across 200 countries worldwide. SWIFT is still the principal network used for cross-border payments, with over USD 100 trillion USD being transferred through the SWIFT gpi network.
The bilateral trade between Egypt and China hit USD 19.97 billion in 2021, up by 37.3% year on year. Exports from China to Egypt totalled USD 18.27 billion, up 34% year on year, while China's imports from Egypt reached USD 1.7 billion, up 84.8%.
According to a Mastercard report, Egypt is a fertile ground for all that is innovative and digital. Egyptians increased their use of at least one digital payment method in 2022, including digital cards, SMS payments, digital money transfer apps and instant payment services. Moreover, data shows that 88% of people in Egypt have used at least one emerging payment method in 2022, 35% of which used tappable smartphone mobile wallets while 27% used a digital money transfer app, while the remaining 24% used QR codes.
China, on the other hand, has already gone through a digital payments revolution. Paying through mobile phones has become second nature for the majority of Chinese. By the end of 2021, around 903.6 million people utilised mobile payments in China, which equals roughly 64% of the overall population.
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