With US$40 Trillion Transfers in 2018, SWIFT Gpi is Working on New Features

SWIFT announced that more than US$40 trillion has been transferred over the SWIFT gpi service in 2018. Rapid adoption saw the share of cross-border messages using gpi soar from 15% at the start of 2018, to 56% by the end of the year. That’s a 270% year-on-year increase.

SWIFT gpi, or Global Payments Innovation, is a standard that aims to improve on the SWIFT system. Some of its efforts are to cultivate faster transactions, more transparent fees and end-to-end payment tracking in international transfers.

More than 3,500 banks accounting for 85% of SWIFT’s total payments traffic have adopted gpi, which to SWIFT showcases its impact on cross-border payments.

Emma Loftus, head of global payments for J.P. Morgan’s Treasury Services, said:

Emma Loftus

“SWIFT gpi delivered on the promise of greater payment transparency and predictability, highlighting how banks and industry collaboration can quickly deliver innovation. For years, clients have asked their banks for end-to-end transparency which is easy to use, understand, and implement.”

“With 76% of our payments now being executed via gpi, we are experiencing direct benefits in our ability to respond to client enquiries. Processes that have taken days are being now completed within seconds.”

SWIFT claims that the gpi is carrying over US$300 billion a day in 148 currencies across more than 1,100 country corridors.

40% of SWIFT gpi payments are credited to end beneficiaries within five minutes, according to SWIFT; while half are credited within 30 minutes. Three quarters within six hours; and almost 100% within 24 hours.

Next, SWIFT is Developing gpi Complements

Seemingly satisfied with the number of adopters, SWIFT would move to complement its core gpi services with additional functionalities, and to integrate gpi into a more diverse range of applications.

For instance, SWIFT is working on an integrated and interactive API-based service facilitating real-time bank-to-bank interaction to improve the predictability and efficiency of international payments.

SWIFT is also working on a gateway that would enable e-commerce and trading platforms to plug into the SWIFT gpi directly. Upon completion, the gateway would ideally connect multiple trade platforms to gpi members in a seamless way. Hence, gpi payment initiation, end-to-end payment tracking, payer authentication and credit confirmation can be done directly, from a multitude of platforms.