Global provider of secure financial messaging services SWIFT announced that over the next two years and beyond it will fundamentally transform payments and securities processing, retooling cross-border infrastructure as part of a new strategy.

The company said the new strategy will enable the world’s financial institutions “to deliver instant and frictionless end-to-end transactions.”

In a statement released to the media, SWIFT said the cooperative will expand beyond financial messaging to provide comprehensive transaction management services.

“This new approach will support and accelerate innovation, paving the way for financial institutions — independently or in collaboration with Fintechs — to create new value-added services to support their business growth. In payments, financial institutions will be able to expand offerings to businesses and consumers and enhance the end-customer experience. In securities, financial institutions will benefit from improved reconciliation, reporting and asset servicing processes as well as end-to-end visibility of transactions to reduce settlement fails and fines,” the company explained

SWIFT added that its enhanced platform will orchestrate interactions between financial institutions and other participants “to minimise friction, optimise speed and provide end-to-end transparency and predictability from one account to another anywhere in the world.”

According to SWIFT the move has the potential to power instant and frictionless transactions between at least 4 billion accounts serviced by financial institutions across the SWIFT network.

“The next-generation digital platform will use APIs and cloud technology to provide a set of common processing services that banks have historically invested in individually, saving the industry time and money. New and extensive data capabilities will enable the pre-validation of essential data, fraud detection, data analytics, transaction tracking and exception case management,” the company added.

Javier Pérez-Tasso, CEO of SWIFT, said: “We are innovating the underlying infrastructure that financial institutions use to make transactions run even faster end-to-end, and at the same time further reducing costs for the community through industry-shared services in the areas of cyber, fraud and compliance. We will introduce data innovation that embeds risk and control elements expected from SWIFT, creating peace of mind for business-critical operations. Combining these elements, we are creating a broad platform with faster technology and smarter and better services that the industry can trust as a foundation for innovation towards their own end-clients.”

Yawar Shah, Chair of SWIFT, said: “Over the next two years, SWIFT will fundamentally transform the way in which payments and securities transactions are processed, eliminating friction and increasing speed, quality and certainty. SWIFT will continue to be, as per its true north, bank and market infrastructure centric and its proven track record of timely execution, risk control and global engagement will be enhanced to accelerate this transformation. The full Board, representing the entire global banking community, has endorsed this strategy, which will serve all customer segments, regardless of size and geography, and allow for flexible adoption thanks to backward compatibility.”

Payments in Africa

In August 2020 Murray Gardiner, MD of Bluecode Africa, said as Africa digitises payments and opens its markets, even the informal sector, which the ILO notes provides for 85.5% of employment on the continent, will thrive.

“Finding ways to include the unbanked and the underbanked in the formal economy, and increasing competition for providing financial services to the majority of people are critical to unlocking the economic growth the continent needs,” he noted.