SWIFT cross-border payments initiative signs 45 banks

Announced in December, the Swift initiative will focus initially on business-to-business payments. Its stated goal is to help improve the relationship between corporates and banks by providing same day use of funds, transparency and predictability of fees, end-to-end payments tracking and better payment information.

The vision of the global payments innovation initiative is to boost cross-border transactions by leveraging SWIFT’s proven messaging platform and global reach. Together with the industry, SWIFT has created a new service level agreement (SLA) rulebook which it says provides an opportunity for smart collaboration between banks.

According to SWIFT, the pilot of the new initiative will start from early 2016. Following the corporate cross-border payments pilot programme, Swift says it will add more technologies to the initiative, and it will also create more service level agreements to cater for other client groups. The organisation added that this would further reduce the costs and frictions arising from compliance, liquidity and processing efficiency considerations involved in cross-border payments.

The 45 participating companies include major transaction banks from Europe, Asia Pacific, Africa and the Americas: ABN AMRO Bank, Australia and New Zealand Banking Group, Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Bank of China, Bank of New York Mellon, Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ, Banco Santander, Barclays, BNP Paribas, Citibank, Commerzbank, Credit Suisse, Danske Bank, DBS Bank, Deutsche Bank, Ecobank, FirstRand Bank, HSBC, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, ING Bank, Intesa Sanpaolo, JPMorgan Chase, KBC Bank, KEB Hana Bank, Lloyds Banking Group, Maybank, Mizuho Bank, National Australia Bank, Natixis, Nordea Bank, Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation, Raiffeisen Bank International, RBC Royal Bank, Royal Bank of Scotland, Sberbank, SEB, Société Générale, Standard Chartered, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation, TD Bank, UBS, UniCredit, United Overseas Bank and Wells Fargo.

More banks are expected to join this initiative in the coming months.