Embedding Swift services can enhance payment experiences

How can payment providers continue to innovate to meet customer expectations for fast, transparent, simple and secure cross-border payments? 
Solutions like those Swift co-creates with its community, such as Swift GPI, Payment Pre-validation, Swift Go and others, are already reducing friction in institution’s back offices. Embedding these into front-end customer channels can bring big customer satisfaction and operational efficiency benefits too. 

“The number one query we get from our clients is ‘Where is my payment?’,” said Sanjeev Jain, Managing Director at Citi. “So that’s an area where we have invested heavily and continue to work. Swift GPI was a good starting point, and it was all about taking that and extending it to give our clients access at every step of the way as to where the payment is, what’s happening to it, and whether it reached the beneficiary. And as the end consumer may not be our customer, giving that same access to the end beneficiary was the other place we’ve invested. This has really helped improve the traceability of the payment.”

Meeting the G20 targets requires public and private sector collaboration

As the 2027 deadline to meet the G20’s targets for enhancing the speed, cost, transparency, choice and access of cross-border payments edges closer, it’s no surprise that this was a hot topic at Sibos 2024.

Panellists discussed the great progress that has been made in recent years through collaboration across the Swift community to enhance the overall payments experience. As a result, today 90% of payments on Swift reach the beneficiary’s bank within an hour. To tackle the last mile, however, more work must be done in the receiving country to ensure funds are credited to customers’ accounts quickly too.  

Continued collaboration across the financial ecosystem is key to reaching the targets. “Interoperability is really important. We’re moving away from fragmentation and siloed solutions. So public and private collaboration is going to be absolutely vital going forward,” said Mandeep Nijjar, Head of Payments Liquidity and Settlement, Lloyds Bank.

New tech means more options – and the need for interoperability

As always, a lot of innovation was on display at Sibos 2024. Financial institutions demonstrated sleek user interfaces and advanced capabilities designed to streamline and improve the cross-border payments experience. Discussions also centred on new instant payment platforms and future forms of value like Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) and tokenised assets.

The potential benefits of these new technologies are exciting. Talks highlighted the collaborative innovation across the Swift network to facilitate interoperability between new and existing tech, networks, and currencies so the benefits can be realised at scale.

“We’re witnessing this move into alternative or complementary rails, and it’s a different way for business and end consumers to move value,” explained Camilla Bullock, CEO of Emerging Payments Association Asia. “In one way, that’s really good because there are options there. But it’s also increasing the challenge on how we’re going to make it interoperable, seamless and efficient.”

ISO 20022 is already bringing benefits – continued momentum is key

The transition to ISO 20022 was a big topic at Sibos this year, with participants exploring how the standard’s rich, structured data is already transforming the payments landscape. Likewise, with only one year to go until the November 2025 deadline for payments instructions, now is a critical time for the community to continue the momentum.

Mark Evans, Global Head of Cross-Border Payments at HSBC said, “ISO 20022 is going to help us remove friction in payment processing. It's going to help clients make payments in a very standardised way. It's going to offer much wider compatibility across countries as more and more schemes adopt the new format. It's going to improve front-to-back processing, from origination through to screening, post-transaction monitoring, investigation and returns. All of those things are promised by the new standard.”

By focusing on data standards and interoperability, the benefits for institutions are substantial, including faster processing, reduced errors, and more efficient operations. The consensus was that embracing ISO 20022 isn’t just about compliance – it’s a strategic move to future-proof payment systems and deliver greater value to clients.

AI is transforming the fight against financial crime

Industry experts discussed how AI can analyse vast amounts of data to detect patterns and anomalies that might indicate fraudulent activity, enhancing the ability of financial institutions to prevent and respond to fraud.

Johnny Grimes, Global Head of Product, Corporate Cash Management Head of Corporate Bank Ireland, Deutsche Bank said, “AI has a critical role to play in terms of continuing to evolve how we react and respond to fraud and leveraging all of this data that’s available across multiple different systems to combat that on a global level.”

However, technology alone isn’t the solution. Collaboration across the industry is crucial to effectively use AI in the fight against fraud. By sharing data and insights, financial institutions can improve the accuracy of AI models, reduce false positives, and enhance anomaly detection rates. The consensus was clear: combining AI with industry-wide cooperation is the way forward to protect customers and keep the financial system secure.

As digital assets grow, evolving existing infrastructure remains key

Industry leaders discussed how tokenisation — the process of converting assets into digital tokens on a blockchain — could revolutionise the way value is transferred and managed globally.

“The previous wave of innovation was driven by digitalisation. We think the next wave is going to be tokenisation,” said Naveen Mallela, Global Co-Head, Onyx at J.P. Morgan.

Speakers also emphasised the importance of evolving existing infrastructures while embracing new technologies. Maha El Dimachki, Centre Head, BIS Innovation Hub – Singapore noted, “We need to make sure that we’re not neglecting the ‘evolution part’ to focus on ‘revolution’. We need to enhance what we already have today, because these are important structures and have existed for a long time.”

Swift is actively working on solutions to enable interoperability between different digital asset platforms and existing infrastructure. Upcoming live trials in 2025 will allow banks across North America, Europe, and Asia to transact digital assets and currencies over the Swift network, marking a significant step towards global adoption.

Collaboration is needed to take local Verification of Payee global

To help increase payment efficiency and combat fraud, many countries have developed their own domestic instant payment systems, capable of performing Verification of Payee checks to ensure funds are heading to the correct account.

"One of the challenges for Verification of Payee is that each country is doing their own thing,” explained, David Messenger, CEO, Global Business, at Ping Pong International Business. “You've got Australia, the UK has compulsory participation, Europe is coming, the US has FedNow, but it's not compulsory. This fragmentation is a key challenge."

To overcome this challenge, Swift is working to link these systems together. “Standardisation is key,” added Cian OMurchu, Head of Strategic Transformation Office at Swift. “Some systems give you a Verification of Payee match, some say no match, some give you an accuracy percentage that you need to interpret. Being able to standardise those systems can help to bring different domestic systems together.”

Automation is critical for navigating T+1

As markets evolve and settlement cycles shorten, streamlining securities transactions has become a top priority for financial institutions. At Sibos 2024, discussions centred on the need to embrace standards and prioritise automation.

“Automation will be critical to achieving success with T+1,” said Mimi Yan, Senior Technical Specialist, Financial Markets Standards Board (FSMB).  

Enhanced data and standards can drive up automation, customer satisfaction and efficiency, and panellists promoted industry-wide adoption of the shared Unique Transaction Identifier (UTI) to make this a reality.

“In bilateral relationships where we are sharing enhanced data with customers, the number of settlement fails at clients has reduced dramatically, but it has also reduced the number of queries which we receive by 45%. That’s a huge amount for us. If we can achieve this at scale through the network effect by using the UTI, then that would be amazing,” said Hai Jade Fuan, Executive Director, Head Product Commercialisation, Financing & Securities Services, at Standard Chartered Bank.

Digital payments can drive ESG impact

ESG discussions centred on how companies can do more than just include ESG principles in their compliance, but also embed sustainable practices in daily operations and foster a culture that drives social and environmental responsibility across the board.

Against the backdrop of an event that had sustainability woven throughout – from green energy and recycled carpets to locally sourced food – speakers also highlighted the environmental benefits that digital payments can have.

“We are now seeing that there’s actually tremendous opportunity for digital payments to make an impact,” said Azleena Idris, Director, Corporate Services Division at PayNet Malaysia. “If we facilitate a greener payment industry, by creating more efficient data processing, it will reduce energy consumption and increase energy efficiency.”

Digital transformation is accelerating in trade finance

In a shift from aspiration to action, industry leaders highlighted the significant progress being made in digitising trade processes. And the benefits – from reducing costs and inefficiencies, to gaining reliable data for analytics and risk management – are set to be transformational.

Panellists discussed the momentum behind electronic Bills of Lading (eBL), citing that it could reach 50% by 2027 and 100% by 2030. But to realise the full potential of eBL, panels highlighted the need for institutions to keep up adoption momentum, as well as the development of legal frameworks that are essential for their long-term success.

“It’s going to take time for electronic Bills of Lading to be treated the same as their paper equivalent. But once that becomes a reality, I think it’s really going to transform trade finance,” said Joon Sung Kim, Global Head Trade at BNY.