Swift News & Events

In February 2024, the European Commission passed regulation promising to transform cross-border payments across the continent. Titled the Instant Payments Regulation, it mandates that payment providers offer consumers and SMEs instant, fairly priced payments, bolstered by additional screening and Verification of Payee checks.

So far, several European countries have developed their own systems to complete Verification of Payee checks on domestic transactions.These confirm that the name on a payment matches the beneficiary account, helping to prevent avoidable errors and reduce instances of automated push payment fraud. But work is needed to ensure these checks can be performed on a cross-border level, so that institutions can comply with the regulation’s October 2025 deadline.

Economic crime has a huge impact on the global economy. Worldwide losses from payments fraud in 2023 alone were a staggering $485bn, while money laundering is estimated to cost between $2-5tn annually.

While governments, regulators, and organisations continue to invest in compliance and technology to fight financial crime, these numbers continue to rise. So, what’s being done?

We’ll discuss the ongoing evolution in legislation that’s enabling the financial intelligence sharing partnerships, as well as the progress we’ve made in the Federated AI initiative Swift launched to help the community fight financial crime.
 

What's the big deal with shared ledgers? What advantages could they bring, and what hurdles do we face in establishing universal platforms?

Join us for an insightful session with Swift’s Head of Innovation, Nick Kerigan, and industry experts, Priscilla Koo Wilkens, Senior Economist in Innovation and Digital Economy at the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) and Tony McLaughlin, Emerging Payments and Business Development at Citi, as we delve into these questions in our next Inside Innovation Live.

Discover the future of finance and how shared ledgers could be the key to a more seamless and transparent financial ecosystem.

Explore the transformative journey that ISO 20022 offers for the future of payment systems around the world. Join us as we deep dive into the status of the current landscape and uncover the pivotal role payment systems and central banks play in driving meaningful real-world change through ISO 20022.

The session will deliver valuable insights into strategies the payments community is deploying to establish market standards for ISO 20022 and how these will bolster financial stability and spur innovation.

With North America’s transition to T+1 securities settlement just days away, institutions around the world are prepping for the impact. Automation and transparency are essential to ensure smooth settlement and avoid fails in a world with shorter settlement cycles. And this is particularly true for firms in Asia-Pacific, Australia and New Zealand, where significant time zone differences mean operational teams have very little time to detect and correct any issues before the cut off time.

Watch our video to hear leading experts look at the impact of T+1 in this region, and the latest updates on timelines, models, and requirements to align with the T+1 movement.

We asked. You delivered! In the first ever Swift Innovation Challenge, we asked for innovative AI solutions to streamline global financial transactions. 30 teams of the brightest AI developers, data scientists, and payment experts from all around Asia-Pacific answered the call – and developed some truly creative and inspirational solutions.

Join us to hear from the winners about their experiences and solutions. For Challenge 1, winner Commonwealth Bank and runner up BlockBucks will explain how they used AI to help institutions optimise their cross-border payment routes. And Challenge 2 winner Merlynn Intelligence Technologies and runner up DigsFact, will showcase their AI-based solutions to help institutions detect and mitigate financial crime.

Global trade is still heavily reliant on paper-based documents to ensure the flow of goods around the world. And the continued use of physical ‘Bills of Lading’ means there are lots of inefficiencies in the way the global supply chain works today.

The global trade industry has already agreed that ‘electronic Bills of Lading’ (eBL) will replace paper but, so far, adoption has been slow. One of the main challenges is the current lack of technical interoperability between the various players involved in each trade transaction.

Come along to learn more about how we’re addressing these challenges, and hear the results of our recent collaborative project designed to enable the digital supply chain of the future.

Global ISO 20022 adoption is opening up exciting new possibilities for payments.

How can your firm set out a successful ISO 20022 strategy that’s right for you? What are the opportunities to protect and grow your business, increase efficiency, and improve risk management?

Watch this LinkedIn Live to hear first-hand from leading experts in financial institutions that have been early adopters of the new standard to learn more about the concrete benefits it’s already bringing them and gain actionable insights to help you develop your internal business case.

GenAI has taken the world by storm in 2023, with firms across the globe rapidly exploring how they can harness the power of this technology.

While machine learning has been applied in financial services for some time now, the recent leap forward in the generative capabilities of AI could enable institutions to redefine the workplace, enhance productivity, and foster innovation. Yet there still remains a fundamental lack of knowledge as to how GenAI works and how it can be best applied.

Over the last 20 years, more than 60 instant domestic payment systems have popped up around the world. When moving money within a country, instant is fast becoming the new normal. But as these domestic systems begin to reach beyond their own borders the need to link them together becomes clearer and clearer.

We’ve identified four emerging cross-border payment interoperability models – but which will unite domestic systems? And which could cause fragmentation?

While institutional investors increasingly view tokenised assets as a new source of value, transacting tokens is still a relatively niche activity in the regulated space. And it’s no wonder given the challenges involved. Institutions currently need to go through the arduous task of connecting into multiple blockchain networks – each with different processes and rulebooks – to manage and transact the digital assets.

That’s why, together with more than a dozen financial institutions worldwide, we’re exploring an interoperability solution that could make this simpler. In our latest experiments, we’re testing how firms can re-use their existing Swift infrastructure to efficiently manage tokens over a range of public and private blockchain networks.