Swift has announced a major upgrade aimed at improving the international payments experience for business customers.
The Financial Messaging Network extends ISO 20022 throughout the payments chain and provides banks with an out-of-the-box tracking service.
By standardizing end-to-end payments with ISO 20022, Quick Empower financial institutions to get detailed data from the beginning.
Additionally, banks will now be able to offer white-label payment tracking services to their customers via API or messaging channels, ensuring full transparency regarding payment status and confirmations.
Currently, corporate payments are hampered by different standards and formats, creating a fragmented situation for companies with multiple banks.
Swift’s new plans aim to unify this process and leverage detailed ISO 20022 data to increase automation and reduce integration costs.
The new standard was developed with input from 25 cash management banks and 20 leading companies, including Roche and Saudi Aramco, and aims to streamline payment tracking across the board.
Global pharmaceutical company Roche has already implemented Swift’s corporate API channel, providing direct access to transaction tracking information.
Swift’s efforts are consistent with the G20’s goals on cross-border payments. Currently, 89% of payments on Swift’s network reach recipient banks within an hour, exceeding the G20 target of 75% by 2027.
Many members of Swift’s working group are already piloting the new feature, with plans to expand it to the broader community later this year.
Working Group Members
Thierry Chirosi
Thierry Cirossi, Swift’s chief strategy officer, said:
“The adoption of ISO 20022 provides a unique opportunity to improve cross-border payments. Capturing richer data at the source will strengthen the entire ecosystem, bringing us closer to the goal of instant, frictionless transactions.
We’re excited to make it easy for our community to extend benefits to their customers while simplifying and standardizing access to services like tracking that are so important to efficient corporate finance. ”
