SWIFT to pilot a new cross-border payments service

Early in 2016, SWIFT will launch a new payment initiative to help improve the customer experience in correspondent banking. It will initially focus on a cross-border, business-to-business payments service supported by participating banks.

Designed in collaboration with the industry, the new service will help corporates grow their international business, improve supplier relationships, and achieve greater treasury efficiencies, according to the SWIFT announcement. It will enable corporates to receive an enhanced payments service directly from their banks, with the following key features:

•           Same-day use of funds.

•           Transparency and predictability of fees.

•           End-to-end payments tracking.

•           Transfer of rich-payment information.

It will operate on the basis of business rules captured in multilateral service level agreements (SLAs) between participating banks. The new service is designed to address end-customer needs, without compromising banks’ abilities to meet their compliance obligations, market, credit, and liquidity risk requirements, SWIFT said.

It will operate on SWIFT's global platform. Participation will be open to any supervised financial institution that is a member of SWIFT and adheres to its business rules.

Following the pilot focused on cross-border payments for corporates, SWIFT will work with the industry to define additional service level agreements that will cater for other client groups.

Wim Raymaekers, head of Banking Markets, SWIFT, says: “We will continue to develop new and enhanced services, utilizing SWIFT's Innotribe initiative to further engage the Fintech community and explore the application of innovations such as real time payment status tracking, the use of peer-to-peer messaging, and blockchain technology.”