Towards frictionless cross-border payments

The cross-border payments industry and the correspondent banking network that underpins it are at a critical crossroads.

In a world of 24/7 access to information and user-friendly digital services embedded throughout our personal lives, the opaque experience that corporates and consumers have traditionally faced when transferring money internationally can seem out of date.

While there is clearly a need to innovate and evolve, the foundation of the cross-border payments ecosystem that exists today is actually very effective in addressing the complexities of providing secure and ubiquitous cross-border payments.

However, with today’s customers demanding a more transparent and certain international payments experience, how is the correspondent banking ecosystem responding?

Swift GPI: The foundation for transformation

Our white paper Swift GPI – Towards frictionless cross-border payments, written in collaboration with Citi, explains how the correspondent banking ecosystem is re-inventing itself through Swift’s global payments innovation (gpi), and what this means for banks and their customers.

The white paper outlines how gpi addresses inefficiencies in cross-border payments and looks ahead to how the industry can continue to innovate and build on gpi to remove friction from the end-to-end payments chain. Ultimately, Swift GPI is about enabling banks to provide their customers with a superior cross-border payments experience: one of frictionless intermediation.

This paper also explains how Citi has leveraged gpi data to deliver real-time tracking and visibility into the payments lifecycle directly to clients via its client-facing digital platforms; and the operational efficiencies that have been achieved by integrating gpi transparency into service and investigations processes.

Continuing to innovate and collaborate

Swift GPI has laid the foundation for the correspondent banking industry to meet customer expectations for fast, transparent and efficient cross-border payments. However, there are opportunities for further innovation. Many initiatives to further develop gpi are already ongoing, as described in the paper.

Migration to the ISO 20022 message format provides an avenue for potentially transformative new technologies such as machine learning and artificial intelligence, which could revolutionise the way banks handle traditionally labour-intensive manual tasks such as AML and sanctions screening.

This, coupled with initiatives to make sending payments even faster, is set to make bank interactions more dynamic and collaborative, make handling investigations more efficient, and encourage the development of value-added services supported by gpi means the possibilities are plentiful.

Delivering real value

Swift GPI has re-invented cross-border payments from the ground up, and is already delivering real value for customers around the globe.

Now, with the support of the Swift community, the way is paved for revolutionary change to the correspondent banking industry.

Read the white paper to find out more: