Swift launches frictionless case resolution service with major global banks
- Swift launches frictionless case resolution service with major global banks
- Service enables quick resolution of operational, compliance and regulatory-related issues
- In-flight capability will smooth and speed up the payments process
- Network-wide reach will extend capability to 10,000 banks
Brussels, 2 May 2019 - Swift announces the launch of an ‘in-flight’ payment investigation and resolution service, available in the cloud, in a significant expansion of its network-wide payments validation toolkit. The new capability allows for dynamic query handling between banks on the Swift network, enabling them to quickly resolve instances in which required operational, regulatory or compliance information is incorrect or missing from payment instructions.
This latest development complements Swift’s integrated gpi pre-validation service, which is aimed at identifying and eliminating errors and omissions in payment messages, prior to payment initiation. Integrated directly into Swift GPI, the services will ultimately be made available to all 10,000 banks across the Swift network.
Harry Newman, Head of Banking at Swift, said: “In our drive towards frictionless payments, we are working together with banks and software providers to bring in a fully integrated, network-wide service to ensure a smooth payments process. It has been a consistent bug-bear of many banks that, whilst only a minority of payments are held up by errors and missing information, they are frustrating, time-consuming and costly. Ultimately all 10,000 banks on the network will be able to use these tools seamlessly to resolve them.”
The new service will speed up the resolution of operational, compliance and regulatory-related issues that can arise along the payments chain. While relatively infrequent, these issues can currently take a long time to resolve. Such issues can arise from missing or incorrect information – such as the reason for payment or settlement date, or differences in regulatory controls and requirements across jurisdictions – all of which require additional information and validation.
Interbank efforts to resolve these blockages often involve multiple requests and responses across chains of banks. The use of unstructured, unstandardised messages prevents automated processing, resulting in time-consuming and costly processes.
Available in the cloud, and through a combination of the gpi tracking function and standardised industry protocols, the service will improve transparency, shorten resolution time and reduce the need for manual interventions. Users will be able to locate any hold-ups via the gpi tracker, as well as identify the beneficiary or intermediary banks that may be causing them. Using API calls, and the gpi tracker, they will then be able to automatically exchange the required information directly with the relevant banks. For smaller users, a GUI will be provided to handle the case requests and responses.
Using a standardised ISO 20022 format, the banks will be able to exchange requests and responses in a structured manner – thereby ensuring more efficient case resolution. Facilitating 14 enquiry types and covering three payment types (customer credit transfers, financial institution transfers, cover payments) the architecture is designed to make the service future-proof and extendable to cover any field of any payments message.
Mark McNulty, Global Head Clearing & FI Payments at Citi, said: “In addition to our goal of providing real-time ubiquitous cross-border payments, our ambition is to ensure that any associated customer enquiries are transacted real-time. gpi case resolution is a very important step forward as it provides the platform for banks, across the payment chain, to interact in a far more dynamic, efficient and transparent manner than today and thus ultimately better serve our clients. Case resolution is well placed to build on the scale and reach of gpi to transform how enquiries associated with cross-border payments are resolved.”
Peng Hua, Deputy General Manager, Operation Management Department at Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, said: “ICBC is extremely willing to participate in the application and promotion of the Swift GPI case resolution service as a market forerunner. It can be predicted that through the implementation of Swift GPI case resolution service, banks can achieve rapid exchange of standardised investigation information, improve the efficiency of requests and responses and provide customers with premium cross-border clearing service and outstanding structured resolution.”
Jean-François Mazure, Head of cash clearing services at Societe Generale, said: “Societe Generale is enthusiastic to be taking part in another Swift GPI initiative. This new service streamlines the investigation process and definitively accelerates the resolution of cases. This fits in perfectly with the banking industry’s innovation dynamic that constantly strives to improve service quality as well as optimise operational costs.”
In the first stage of its launch, the service will be piloted by 12 major banks and three case management software providers. The 12 banks taking part in the pilot are Bank of China, BNP Paribas, BNY Mellon, Citi, Deutsche Bank, Emirates NBD, Gazprombank, HSBC, ICBC, SMBC (Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation), Societe Generale and Standard Chartered. The three case management software providers taking part are Appian, Pega and Syracom. The service is scheduled to go live in November 2019.
Supporting bank quotes:
“With the rapid adoption all over the world, Swift GPI is now moving towards a new normal in cross-border payments. Swift is now working closely with global banks to push global payments innovation to other business areas and higher level development, focusing on cost reduction and efficiency improvement. The gpi case resolution service is a typical example, that will improve the efficiency and reduce the cost of investigation cases. Bank of China is one of the initiating banks involved in Swift GPI, we look forward now to enhancing our cooperation with other banks in this new gpi service pilot, and keep improving our service level in cross-border payments. Across Bank of China’s global settlement network and overseas institutions all over the world, we will provide an even better cross-border payments service to our customers.” Mr. Fan Yaosheng, General Manager of Clearing Department, Bank of China Head Office
中国银行支付清算部范耀胜总经理表示：“随着GPI一期在全球快速推进，并逐步成为跨境支 付业务的新常态，Swift组织正在与银行紧密协作，围绕降成本、增效益，推动全球支付创 新向更多领域、更深层次、更高水平发展,目前正在推进的gpi case resolution服务就是一个典 型事例，旨在提升查询效率，降低查询成本。中国银行是最早参与GPI国际支付创新的银行之 一，我们愿意与同业一道，积极参与GPI远期试点，持续提升跨境服务水平，依托中国银行全 球化清算网络和海外广泛布局，为全球客户提供更优质的跨境支付服务” 。
“In addition to our goal of providing real-time ubiquitous cross-border payments, our ambition is to ensure that any associated customer enquiries are transacted real time. gpi Case resolution is a very important step forward as it provides the platform for banks, across the payment chain, to interact in a far more dynamic, efficient and transparent manner than today and thus ultimately better serve our clients. Case resolution is well placed to build on the scale and reach of gpi to transform how enquiries associated with cross border payments are resolved.” Mark McNulty, Global Head Clearing & FI Payments, Citi
“With Swift GPI now having successfully resolved the issues around payment transparency and speed, this new gpi case resolution service addresses the remaining pain points for our corporate clients and the banking industry, namely, payments requiring investigations and exception handling. It will not only bring greater efficiency, but also full transparency and speed across the entire Swift network of banks.” Christian Westerhaus, Head of Cash Products, Deutsche Bank
“Time taken for enquiries & investigations in international payments has long been a pain point for all the banks. The gpi case resolution service comes with a promise to address this issue by providing a tool to directly communicate with any bank in the payment chain. The idea of using standardized codes to raise case resolution enquiries will ensure easy & standard interpretation of queries and eliminate the need to send multiple communication messages for the same query.” Abdulla Qassem, Group Chief Operating Officer, Emirates NBD
“Implementation of innovative Swift solutions is always a priority for our Bank. Gazprombank has joined the pilot project to develop a new gpi case resolution service with great interest. We hope that our experience in the field of payment exceptions and investigations will be useful to the project participants” Irina Kaplunnik, First Vice President, Gazprombank
“ICBC is extremely willing to participate in the application and promotion of the Swift GPI case resolution service as a market forerunner. It can be predicted that through the implementation of Swift GPI case resolution service, banks can achieve rapid exchange of standardized investigation information, improve the efficiency of requests and responses and provide customers with premium cross-border clearing service and outstanding structured resolution.” Peng Hua, Deputy General Manager, Operation Management Department, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC)
中国工商银行非常乐意以先行者的身份积极参与Swift GPI查询查复解决方案的应用与推广工 作。因为可以预见，通过应用Swift GPI查询查复解决方案，商业银行能够实现查询查复标准 化信息的快速传递，提升解决汇款问题的效率，为客户提供优质的跨境清算服务和高效的结构 化解决方案。 ——彭华，中国工商银行运行管理部副总经理
“Société Générale is enthusiastic to be taking part in another Swift GPI initiative. This new service streamlines the investigation process and definitively accelerates the resolution of cases. This fits in perfectly with the banking industry’s innovation dynamic that constantly strives to improve service quality as well as optimise operational costs.” Jean-François Mazure, Head of cash clearing services, Societe Generale
“Standard Chartered is pleased to participate in this in-flight case resolution service offering by Swift and is actively involved in shaping its business rules. The new service, which aims to dramatically improve the client experience in regards to cross-border payment investigation, will allow clients to benefit from a faster resolution of enquiries raised by downstream banks in the payment chain.” Shirish Wadivkar, Global Head of Correspondent Banking Products, Standard Chartered
Supporting quotes from application providers
“Swift GPI Case resolution is the logical next step after the go-live of gpi stop & recall early 2019. Being able to use the benefits of gpi for unable to apply use cases helps banks to improve customer experience and reduce costs in the intense investigations handling of cross-border payments.
As a vendor of a case management solution we appreciate the collaborative approach taken by Swift to pilot gpi Case resolution with a small number of leading business and technical participants following the agile principle: fail fast, try often, fail cheap! Instead of investing much time and money in an ideal process for all possible exceptions and investigations we are focussed on gaining high business value by covering roughly 80% of events and a target oriented validation of the services. Swift GPI case resolution can be implemented with Swift MT messages, easily, and is ready to switch to ISO20022 in the next years. Therefore, many banks should follow the example of the pilot participants, fast.” Marc Claas, Division manager IT Solutions, Syracom
“Appian's experience working with leading financial firms to rapidly deliver high-impact business outcomes aligns perfectly with Swift's goals for optimizing complex payment investigations," said Michael Heffner, vice president of Global Industry Leads at Appian. "Our low-code development platform will enable Swift to rapidly deliver aggregations of case histories, data, and decisions both in the moment and over time. This will mean increased operational efficiency and improved customer service."
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Swift GPI
The Swift global payments innovation (Swift GPI) is the largest change in cross-border payments over the last 30 years and is the new standard. Swift GPI dramatically improves the customer experience in cross-border payments by increasing their speed, transparency and end-to-end tracking. Hundreds of thousands of cross-border payments, totalling over $300bn, are sent every day using the new gpi standard. Payments are made quickly, typically within minutes, even seconds.
Swift GPI allows corporates to receive an enhanced payments service, with the following key features:
- Faster, same day use of funds within the time zone of the receiving gpi member
- Transparency of fees
- End-to-end payments tracking
- Remittance information transferred unaltered
With Swift GPI, the correspondent banking community, together with fintechs, corporates, and others, is collectively removing frictions and reducing the costs associated with cross-border payments. Since its launch in January 2017, gpi has dramatically improved the cross-border payments experience for corporates in over 1,100 country corridors. Key features of Swift GPI include enhanced business rules and a secure tracking database in the cloud accessible via APIs. New gpi services are routinely developed with the gpi member community and rolled out to the growing network of banks.
Thanks to Swift GPI, corporates can grow their international business, improve supplier relationships, and achieve greater treasury efficiencies. On average, 40% of Swift GPI payments are credited to end beneficiaries within 5 minutes. 50% are credited within 30 minutes; 75% within 6 hours; and almost 100% within 24 hours.
Already, 3,500 banks accounting for 85% of Swift’s total payments traffic have committed to adopting gpi and more than 55 payment market infrastructures are already exchanging gpi payments, enabling domestic exchange and tracking. Payment market infrastructures have a critical role to play in facilitating the end-to-end tracking of cross-border payments because as soon as international payments hit the destination country, they are typically cleared through local payment infrastructures.
About Swift
Swift is a global member owned cooperative and the world’s leading provider of secure financial messaging services. We provide our community with a platform for messaging and standards for communicating, and we offer products and services to facilitate access and integration, identification, analysis and regulatory compliance.
Our messaging platform, products and services connect more than 11,000 banking and securities organisations, market infrastructures and corporate customers in more than 200 countries and territories. While Swift does not hold funds or manage accounts on behalf of customers, we enable our global community of users to communicate securely, exchanging standardised financial messages in a reliable way, thereby supporting global and local financial flows, as well as trade and commerce all around the world.
As their trusted provider, we relentlessly pursue operational excellence; we support our community in addressing cyber threats; and we continually seek ways to lower costs, reduce risks and eliminate operational inefficiencies. Our products and services support our community’s access and integration, business intelligence, reference data and financial crime compliance needs. Swift also brings the financial community together – at global, regional and local levels – to shape market practice, define standards and debate issues of mutual interest or concern. Swift’s strategic five year plan, Swift2020, challenges Swift to continue investing in the security, reliability and growth of its core messaging platform, while making additional investments in existing services and delivering new and innovative solutions.
Headquartered in Belgium, Swift’s international governance and oversight reinforces the neutral, global character of its cooperative structure. Swift’s global office network ensures an active presence in all the major financial centres.
