SWIFT announces today that global transaction banks are actively using SWIFT’s new global payments innovation (gpi) service, which opened for live payments in January 2017. ABN AMRO, Bank of China, BBVA, Citi, Danske Bank, DBS Bank, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, ING Bank, Intesa Sanpaolo, Nordea Bank, Standard Chartered Bank and UniCredit are live with SWIFT gpi, exchanging gpi payments across 60 country corridors. Numerous additional banks will follow in the coming months.

“We are delighted that SWIFT gpi is now live and is already enhancing the cross-border payments experience for corporate treasurers,” says Christian Sarafidis, Chief Marketing Officer at SWIFT. “A year ago the global financial community pledged to dramatically improve the cross-border payments experience, and today marks a major milestone in delivering on that promise. It further demonstrates the ability of SWIFT and the financial industry to collaborate, innovate and rapidly introduce new solutions.”

A number of financial institutions in the Arab region including Dubai-based Mashreq Bank and Tadhamon International Islamic Bank have already announced the proposed adoption of SWIFT’s gpi.

Khaled Moharem, Head of Middle East & North Africa at SWIFT, said: “SWIFT is helping to make real change for the financial industry by supporting banks in the Middle East to deliver new standards in cross-border payments to their customers. The future of payments is here and SWIFT is at the centre of it.”

SWIFT gpi enables banks to offer a faster, more transparent and traceable cross-border payments service. The highly innovative new gpi Tracker feature allows banks to provide corporate treasurers with a real-time, end-to-end view on the status of their payments, including confirmations when payments have been credited to beneficiaries’ accounts. Treasurers also now have certainty that remittance information, such as invoice references, are transferred unaltered to the beneficiary.SWIFT will also introduce the gpi Observer, a quality assurance tool that monitors participants’ adherence to the gpi business rules.

SWIFT is already designing the next phase of gpi, which will include additional digital services to further transform the cross-border payment experience, such as a rich payment data service.

Wim Raymaekers, Head of SWIFT gpi at SWIFT adds: “Customers require more certainty, transparency and traceability in their cross-border payments; SWIFT gpi is delivering this today.And with nearly 100 leading transaction banks already signed up, SWIFT gpi is set to rapidly expand with more banks, new features and additional payment services.”

In parallel, SWIFT gpi is exploring distributed ledger technology for real-time Nostro account reconciliation. A proof of concept was announced in January 2017.