SWIFT to introduce universal real-time payment tracking

This will enable gpi banks to track all their SWIFT payment instructions at all times, giving them full visibility over all their payments activity.

The Tracker, which has been available since May 2017, enables banks that have signed up to the service to track their gpi payments in real-time. From November a unique end-to-end transaction reference will be included in all payment instructions carried between all 11,000 customers on SWIFT at all times, across more than 200 countries and territories. This will give gpi customers full end-to-end tracking of all their payment messages.

The Tracker automatically provides status updates to all gpi banks involved in any gpi payment chain and allows them to confirm when a payment has been completed. The Tracker also facilitates more accurate reconciliation of payments and invoices, optimises liquidity and reduces exposure to FX risk, with same-day processing of funds in beneficiaries time zones. As a cloud-based service, the Tracker is available via an API, making it compatible with proprietary banking systems worldwide. The expanded tracking functionalities  are part of a series of gpi services and it will roll out in 2018.

Launched in 2017, gpi already accounts for 10% of SWIFT cross-border payment traffic, and is enabling more than a hundred billion dollars to be transferred across the world every day. More than 150 banks, representing over 78% of SWIFTs cross-border payments traffic, have signed up to the service, sending hundreds of thousands of payments daily across 220 country corridors - including major corridors such as USA-China, where gpi already accounts for more than 25% of payment traffic. Nearly 50% of gpi payments are completed in less than 30 minutes, many within seconds.

The introduction of the end-to-end transaction reference in all payment instructions will be effected through the mandatory annual standards update in November 2018. After this point, all SWIFT customers will be required to include the unique end-to-end transaction reference in their payment instructions, irrespective of whether they are gpi banks and or whether they are executing gpi payments. All regulated financial institutions on SWIFT are eligible to join the gpi.