Swift Successfully Completes The First Pilot To Process Payments Across Currency Zones

Swift, BBVA, Iberpay, and other global banks have successfully closed the first pilot program to process payments between different currency areas. The goal behind partnering for the pilot project is to improve the international payments that involve currency exchanges.

Swift partners with global banks to process payments across currency zones

Swift and the other financial institutions that have partnered for this pilot program want to boost the international payments that involve currency exchanges by boosting transparency, increasing speed, availability, and accessibility.

As aforementioned, several institutions have partnered for this initiative, including Iberpay and leading banks across Spain like BBVA, CaixaBank, and Santander. These banks participated in carrying out the first test of the service in Europe. The official rollout for this solution is slated to happen later this year.

There have been multiple challenges with international payments, such as high costs and slow speeds. However, Swift has been offering a platform to improve these global payments and make the process of sending money across borders easy, cost-friendly, and seamless.

The objective of this program by Swift is to solve the apparent issues that are evident with international payments. The solutions integrated into these payments are in line with the guidelines that have been proposed by several bodies globally, such as the Basel Bank for International Settlements (BIS), European Commission, Financial Stability Board (FSB), International Monetary Fund (IMF), G7, G20, and the World Bank.

Pilot involved different currency areas

During the period that this pilot program will run, dozens of payments originating from banks across different currency areas have been processed to understand the efficiency that the program will bring to cross-border transactions.

The different currency areas that were part of the pilot program include Australia, National Australia Bank, New Zealand Banking Group, Itaú Unibanco in Brazil, and Lloyds Banking Group in the UK.

The process involved sending payments in these currency areas using the Swift GPI Instant service. These payments were processed, settled, and credited within a short time, which ended up benefiting the customer account of the beneficiary. The process also involved a final delivery of this payment using the Iberpay instant transfer service.

The pilot program involved a unique service offering by Iberpay that is yet to be released to the public. It involved the Iberpay instant transfer platform that operates in real-time round-the-clock. It also involved the Swift GPI tracker that offers comprehensive visibility of the payment status and more transparency in transactions.

Some of the benefits posed by this initiative include the ability to process international payments within a short time. Moreover, these payments come with end-to-end payment traceability, minimizing exploitation by criminals.

The features offered by this program help to boost the experience of the customers, present new use cases and create innovative products that will compete with the new players across the payments industry.