SWIFT, Accenture publish joint paper on CBDCs in cross-border payments

The paper seeks to help the financial community prepare for the possibility of moving payments in new forms of currency internationally. More than half the world’s central banks are actively exploring the use of CBDCs, a development that could lead to profound change in the global payments ecosystem. This paper explores the practicalities of such a shift – from the ways in which CBDCs would move across jurisdictions to the integration of CBDCs into the mix of currencies that already exist — and details what is required for CBDCs to be a viable solution in international payments. 

Interoperability will be key to their success, and while CBDCs present new challenges and opportunities, the paper concludes that continued exploration of CBDCs is likely to leverage existing payments rails where possible, new solutions will become an extension of current infrastructure, and that SWIFT has a unique role to play in a payments ecosystem that includes CBDCs.

To that end, SWIFT is undertaking a deeper dive into CBDCs through thought leadership and experimentation over the coming months. This includes trials to see how SWIFT’s evolving platform and renewed focus on transaction management services under its new strategy to enable instant, frictionless payments across 4 billion accounts globally – agnostic of standards, technologies, and currencies – could interact with the cross-border use of CBDCs. In collaboration with the community, SWIFT intends to explore its role further - both as a carrier of authenticated information about CBDC transactions, as it does today for fiat currencies, and as a carrier of actual CBDC value in whatever form it is issued.