SWIFT will expand beyond financial messaging to provide comprehensive transaction management services, the cooperative said Thursday.
This new approach will support and accelerate innovation, paving the way for financial institutions — independently or in collaboration with fintechs — to create new value-added services to support their business growth, according to SWIFT.
In payments, financial institutions will be able to expand offerings to businesses and consumers and enhance the end-customer experience, the organization said.
In securities, financial institutions will benefit from improved reconciliation, reporting and asset servicing processes as well as end-to-end visibility of transactions to reduce settlement fails and fines, SWIFT added.
SWIFT’s enhanced platform will orchestrate interactions between financial institutions and other participants to minimise friction, optimise speed and provide end-to-end transparency and predictability from one account to another anywhere in the world, said the cooperative’s CEO Javier Pérez-Tasso.
This move has the potential to power instant and frictionless transactions between at least 4 billion accounts serviced by financial institutions across the SWIFT network, the cooperative noted.
APIs and cloud
The next-generation digital platform will use APIs and cloud technology to provide a set of common processing services that banks have historically invested in individually, saving the industry time and money, SWIFT pointed out.
New and extensive data capabilities will enable the pre-validation of essential data, fraud detection, data analytics, transaction tracking and exception case management, the cooperative added.
The planned platform capabilities build on SWIFT’s recent successful transformation initiatives, including SWIFT gpi, the benchmark in cross-border payments messaging, and leverage the cooperative’s reach across more than 11,000 institutions in 200 countries and territories, the organisation pointed out.
“Over the next two years, SWIFT will fundamentally transform the way in which payments and securities transactions are processed, eliminating friction and increasing speed, quality and certainty, said Yawar Shah, Chair of SWIFT. “SWIFT will continue to be, as per its true north, bank and market infrastructure centric and its proven track record of timely execution, risk control and global engagement will be enhanced to accelerate this transformation.”
