ICBC signs up for SWIFT’s Workers’ Remittances solution

Hong Kong, 17 August 2009 — SWIFT today announced that Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), the country’s biggest commercial lender by assets, has signed up for SWIFT’s Workers’ Remittances 1.0, the new service to support financial institutions' cross-border person-to-person payments.

ICBC will use the solution for its substantial existing global remittance business in countries such as the United States and South Africa.  And the bank – with more than 17,000 domestic and overseas institutional clients, servicing 170 million individual customers – also has plans for further expansion of its workers' remittances business.

 “ICBC would like to use SWIFT’s Workers’ Remittances 1.0 to extend our remittance business in the US and South Africa. SWIFT’s Beijing office is now providing assistance to ICBC on locating pilot partners in these target regions and with pilot preparation,” says Mrs LiLi, Deputy General Manager and Head of Clearing Center, Operation Management Department at ICBC.

“International remittances represent a significant opportunity for Chinese institutions,” says Mabel Lu, SWIFT Account Manager based in Beijing. “The World Bank says that China is the world’s second largest remittance receiving country, with inflows of USD 34 billion in 2008.  The combination of SWIFT’s global reach, combined with a service that is tailored to support the specific consumer requirements in this market, will enable Chinese banks and their international counterparts to capture a larger share of these flows with speed and efficiency.”

Workers’ remittances are defined by the World Bank as ‘cross-border, person-to-person payments of relatively low-value’.  According to SWIFT estimates, over 200 million migrants initiate between one and 1.5 billion cross-border payments each year, and industry revenue exceeds USD 15 billion annually. SWIFT’s solution is designed to enable banks to clear and settle these payments in a mfore efficient and transparent way, using the SWIFT global network and standards.

“Banks active in the remittance market generally have tended to develop specific proprietary or bilateral services,” says Michael Whyte, Senior Market Manager, Banks and Low-Value Payments Group, SWIFT.  “While these are effective, they can be expensive, and that’s why banks asked SWIFT to offer a solution that would not only bring scalability to bilateral bank services, but also support any type of retail banking payment while remaining commercially and brand neutral.”

The SWIFT Workers’ Remittances solution makes the bilateral model scalable and efficient, as it uses a common market practice rulebook, messaging standards and services as well as reference data.

Following the successful conclusion of SWIFT’s global pilot in April this year, six banks are now certified for the Workers’ Remittances live service and a further 24 are in implementation.

At Sibos 2009 in Hong Kong, workers’ remittances is definitely on the conference agenda.   A session  on Tuesday 15 September called “Workers’ remittances: evolving through the crisis”  will feature Wells Fargo, DBS Bank and Bank of New York Mellon talking about their experience in the market, while Wednesday 16 September is designated as Workers’ Remittances Business Day.  More details are available from www.sibos2009.com.

About SWIFT
SWIFT is a member-owned cooperative that provides the communications platform, products and services to connect over 8,500 banking organisations, securities institutions and corporate customers in more than 200 countries. SWIFT enables its users to exchange automated, standardised financial information securely and reliably, thereby lowering costs, reducing operational risk and eliminating operational inefficiencies. SWIFT also brings the financial community together to work collaboratively to shape market practice, define standards and debate issues of mutual interest.

For more information, please refer to our website www.swift.com or contact:
Upstream Asia
Jennifer Shay
+852 2973 0222
jennifer.shay@upstreamasia.com