SWIFT Bridges TradFi and Distributed Ledger Technology With 17 Banks

SWIFT has introduced its own blockchain-based shared ledger after nine months of development. The pilot project is moving into operational use with 17 major banks set to pioneer tokenised cross-border payments.

The banks are ANZ, BNP Paribas, BNY, Citi, DBS, First Abu Dhabi Bank, FirstRand Bank, HSBC, Itaú Unibanco, Lloyds Bank, Mashreq, MUFG Bank, OCBC, Standard Chartered, UBS, UOB, and Wells Fargo.

It combines distributed ledger technology and the existing secure messaging network used by SWIFT, which covers more than 200 markets.

The goals of this project are simple:

• improved liquidity
• transparency of cash flows
• ability to seamlessly enable token recognition

This is NOT an alternative to SWIFT. It’s an extension of it.

Carl Slabicki, head of commercial, global payments & trade at BNY, said: “We are pleased to continue collaborating with SWIFT on the use of shared ledger technology to support greater interoperability in cross-border payments. This work is an important step in understanding how these capabilities may evolve over time in a way that complements existing infrastructure and meets the needs of clients globally.”

What the Ledger Actually Does for Banks

The traditional interbank payments involve a series of correspondent banks, adding time and complexity. The SWIFT ledger solves that by enabling tokenized deposits to settle between participating banks on a shared network that operates 24/7.

The 17 banks in this pilot project are running in real time. It means more big institutions are now trusting the stability of the infrastructure and putting real money toward it.

SWIFT has also announced its next steps. It says that it is a “platform for programmable money and agentic commerce, with payments made automatically when conditions are met without having to be manually authorized on the transaction.”

Ripple and XRP’s Place Inside the New Framework

A few months ago, Ripple Treasury joined SWIFT enabling direct global bank access and unified fiat and crypto control. It also partnered with Kyobo Life Insurance for real-time tokenized government bond settlement.

Now, over 30 banks connected to the Ripple ecosystem are listed on SWIFT’s payments framework. The list includes HSBC, Deutsche Bank, Santander, Standard Chartered, and JPMorgan.

This is not a migration from SWIFT to XRP. The truth is XRP is possibly going to be a liquidity-providing platform for SWIFT’s growing digital transformation.

Banks demand instant liquidity to fulfill tokenized transactions across borders. Ripple’s network provides them access to such liquidity in real-time without pre-funding foreign accounts in each destination currency.

What SWIFT’s Blockchain Move Means Long-Term

17 banks implementing live transactions on a common blockchain ledger represents a real action step towards blockchain adoption. With SWIFT moving in this direction, blockchain is no longer a tokenized finance concept. It is being built into the settlement infrastructure by the biggest institutions.

Lastly, the question is whether the pilot project can expand quickly enough and additional banks will join up to boost the adoption.

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