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SWIFT competes with Ripple with successful instant cross-border trials

23/07/2019

A successful trial of instant cross-border transfers has been carried out by SWIFT, which has them competing with blockchain cross-border service providers using Ripple’s payment systems. Instant transfers amongst 17 banks based in Australia, China, Canada, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, Singapore, and Thailand have been completed with the fastest transaction taking just 13 seconds and the longest taking only 25 seconds.

The trials utilized SWIFT’s Global Payments Innovation (GPI) and Singapore’s domestic instant payments solution, FAST. According to SWIFT, the GPI instant system is expected to bring down the cost of transactions.

SWIFT’s Head of banking Harry Newman said, “SWIFT envisages that cross-border payments will become as convenient as domestic transactions, and the successful testing across multiple corridors between Europe and North America to Asia Pacific confirms the important role that GPI Instant will play in making that bold vision a reality.”

Author: Kate Nelson