Oversight of SWIFT

Central banks have the explicit objective of fostering financial stability and promoting the soundness of payment and settlement systems.

While SWIFT is neither a payment nor a settlement system and, as such, is not regulated by central banks or bank supervisors, a large and growing number of systemically important payment systems have become dependent on SWIFT, which has thus acquired a systemic character.

Because of this, the central banks of the Group of Ten countries (G-10) agreed that SWIFT should be subject to cooperative oversight by central banks. The oversight of SWIFT in its current form dates from 1998.

The arrangement was last reviewed in 2012 with the set-up of the SWIFT Oversight Forum, through which information sharing on SWIFT oversight activities was expanded to a larger group of central banks.

An open and constructive dialogue

SWIFT is committed to an open and constructive dialogue with oversight authorities. The National Bank of Belgium (NBB) acts as the lead overseer, supported
by the G-10 central banks. The oversight focuses primarily on ensuring that SWIFT has effective controls and processes to avoid posing a risk to the financial stability and the soundness of financial infrastructures.

The NBB is lead overseer, as SWIFT is incorporated in Belgium. Other central banks also have a legitimate interest in, or responsibility for, the oversight of SWIFT, given SWIFT’s role in their domestic systems.
As is generally the case in payments systems oversight, the major instrument for the oversight of SWIFT is moral suasion. Overseers place great importance on the constructive and open dialogues conducted on the basis of mutual trust with the SWIFT Board and senior management. During these dialogues, overseers formulate their recommendations to SWIFT.

A protocol signed between the NBB and SWIFT lays down the common understanding of overseers and SWIFT about the oversight objectives and the activities that will be undertaken to achieve those objectives. It can be revised periodically to reflect evolving oversight arrangements.

Objectives, areas of interest and limitations

The objectives of oversight of SWIFT centre on the security, operational reliability, business continuity and resilience of the SWIFT infrastructure.
To review whether SWIFT is pursuing these objectives, overseers want to obtain comfort that SWIFT has put in place appropriate governance arrangements, structures, processes, risk management procedures and controls that enable it to effectively manage the potential risks to financial stability and to the soundness of financial infrastructures. The High Level Expectations for the oversight of SWIFT set out the expectations that overseers have vis-à-vis the services SWIFT is providing to the global financial infrastructure. The five Expectations relate to Risk Identification and Assessment, Information Security, Reliability and Resilience, Technology Planning and Communication with Users.

Overseers review SWIFT’s identification and mitigation of operational risks, and may also review legal risks, transparency of arrangements and customer access policies. SWIFT’s strategic direction may also be discussed with the Board and senior management.

This list of oversight fields is indicative, not exhaustive. In short, overseers will undertake those activities that provide them comfort that SWIFT is paying proper attention to the objectives described above. Nevertheless, SWIFT continues to bear the responsibility for the security and reliability of its systems, products and services. It should be understood that the oversight of SWIFT does not grant SWIFT any certification, approval or authorisation.

International cooperative oversight

As lead overseer, the NBB conducts the oversight of SWIFT in cooperation with the other G-10 central banks, that is Bank of Canada, Deutsche Bundesbank, European Central Bank, Banque de France, Banca d’Italia, Bank of Japan, De Nederlandsche Bank, Sveriges Riksbank, Swiss National Bank, Bank of England and the Federal Reserve System (USA), represented by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.

In the SWIFT Oversight Forum, these central banks are joined by other central banks from major economies: Reserve Bank of Australia, People’s Bank of China, Hong Kong Monetary Authority, Reserve Bank of India, Bank of Korea, Bank of Russia, Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency, Monetary Authority of Singapore, South African Reserve Bank and the Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey. The SWIFT Oversight Forum provides a forum for the G-10 central banks to share information on SWIFT oversight activities with a wider group of central banks.

Oversight structure — oversight meetings

The NBB monitors SWIFT on an ongoing basis. It identifies relevant issues through the analysis of documents provided by SWIFT and through discussions with the management. It maintains a continuous relationship with SWIFT, with ad-hoc meetings on a regular basis, and serves as the central banks’ entry point for the cooperative oversight of SWIFT. In that capacity, the NBB chairs the senior policy and technical groups that facilitate the cooperative oversight, provides the secretariat and monitors the follow-up of the decisions taken.

Access to information

In order to achieve their oversight objectives, the overseers need timely access to all information they judge relevant for the purpose of the oversight. Typical sources of information are SWIFT Board papers, security audit reports, incident reports and incident review reports.

Another important channel for gathering information is through presentations by SWIFT staff and management. Finally, SWIFT assists overseers in identifying internal SWIFT documents that might be relevant to address specific oversight questions. Provisions on the confidential treatment of non-public information are included both in the protocol between the NBB and SWIFT, and in the bilateral Memorandums of Understanding between the NBB and each of the other cooperating central banks. The official description of the NBB’s oversight role can be found in the Financial Stability Review published by the National Bank of Belgium and available on its website www.nbb.be.