SWIFT, the banking cooperative focused on payment messaging, successfully concluded a series of near real-time proof of concept cross-border payments under its global payments innovation (gpi) standards launched last year.
 
The test covered payments made from China to Australia, Singapore to Australia and Thailand to Australia*. The fastest payment (Singapore to Australia) clocked in at nine seconds.
 
SWIFT said Australia was a pivot point for this trial because of the recently launched New Payments Platform (NPP), a real-time clearing and settlement service.
 
“The trial has indeed confirmed that the SWIFT gpi “payments in seconds” experience can be extended seamlessly via domestic real-time payment systems to all NPP-enabled bank accounts,” SWIFT said in a press release on October 21.
 
SWIFT’s big push for delivering payments speedily is a response to the rapidly changing world of payments infrastructure. With plenty of new fintech-based technology companies, such as Ripple, offering alternative ways to deliver payments, SWIFT is keen to own the conversation around payments.
 
SLOW AND STEADY (AND TRANSPARENT)