SWIFT announced that 73 banks worldwide have joined its global payments innovation initiative, designed to improve the cross-border payments experience. These banks include, Alfa Bank, Axis Bank, Banco de Credito del Peru, Banco do Brasil, Bangkok Bank, Bank of Nova Scotia, CaixaBank, Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, Credit Agricole, CTBC Bank, ICICI Bank, Mashreq Bank, Rabobank, Swedbank, TMB Bank and U.S. Bank. Wim Raymaekers, global head of Banking Market and project lead for the initiative at SWIFT, said together they do nearly 75% of all cross-border payments on the SWIFT network. As a part of the initiative, banks will enhance their approach to cross border payments and follow a set of strict business rules designed by SWIFT in collaboration with participating banks. Banks in the initiative will be able to give their corporate clients a dramatically improved payment experience, with same day use of funds, transparency of fees, end-to-end tracking, and transfer of rich payment information. To enable the end-to-end tracking, SWIFT is developing a database ‘in the cloud’ hosted at SWIFT, to give end-to-end visibility on the status of a payment transaction, from the moment it is sent until it is confirmed – similar to tracking services provided by international shipping companies. For the first time, banks will be able to give their customers precise information about their payments, in real-time, including confirmation of credit to beneficiary’s account, said Raymaekers. The first phase of the initiative is well underway with a pilot focused on business-to-business payments.
