Swift has planned to set new rules for retail cross-border payments on its network in a new strategy to further ramp up speed, security, and predictability.
Following this announcement, Swift and its participant banks will focus on introducing new network rules in order to ensure a consistently fast and predictable experience for consumers and small businesses who are sending money anywhere in the world.
Swift is set to develop the new scheme framework with a voluntary coalition of over 30 early adopter banks in order to provide retail customers with the peace of mind, security, and predictability they expect when sending money internationally. In addition, the rules will ensure upfront transparency on payment costs, guaranteed full value delivery, end-to-end visibility, and a commitment to instant settlement where the case is available.
More information on Swift’s strategy of launching new rules for retail cross-border payments
According to the official press release, financial institutions will be given the possibility to leverage the optimised capabilities on the Swift platform, which are typically used for wholesale payments, in order to improve cross-border retail transactions. At the same time, recent upgrades have significantly improved the experience, while also enabling fully transparent transfers that exceed G20 targets, with 75% of payments reaching beneficiary banks within 10 minutes. Initiatives like Swift Go and experience benchmarking have already provided consumer channels with several new benefits, and the scheme is set to further extend the advantages to 4 billion accounts across the region of more than 200 countries.
Banks and financial institutions from 17 countries will work with Swift in order to set the retail rules in stages, including defining mechanisms to ensure adherence. The banks include Absa, Commerzbank, Mizuho, ANZ, Commonwealth Bank of Australia, NatWest, Axis Bank, Crédit Agricole, OCBC Bank, Banco Bradesco, Deutsche Bank, Royal Bank of Canada (RBC), Banco Santander, Ecobank, Saudi Awwal Bank (SAB), Bank of America, Emirates NBD, Societe Generale, Banorte, FirstRand Bank, TD Bank Group, BBVA, ICICI Bank, UOB, BNP Paribas, Itaú Unibanco, Wells Fargo, BNY, JP Morgan Chase, Westpac, Citi, and Lloyds Bank.
Together with these financial institutions, Swift will focus on bringing improved benefits to retail customers around the world, as the new scheme will ensure that users and small businesses will experience fast and predictable international payments, whether sending money to family and friends abroad or paying an overseas supplier.
Furthermore, the work advances the 2027 G20 Roadmap for cross-border payments, which Swift has currently made a priority, as it has made strong progress in the `in-flight` cross-border leg, and it has also been doing additional work to optimise the process of removing friction in end-to-end transaction chains.
