Thursday, 2 May 2019

SWIFT extends integrated payments toolkit


Brussels,2May 2019
SWIFTannounces the launch of an ‘in-flight’payment investigation and resolutionservice, available in the cloud,in a significant expansion of its network-wide payments validation toolkit. The new capability allows for dynamic query handling between banks on the SWIFT network, enablingthem to quickly resolve instances in which required operational, regulatory or compliance information is incorrect or missing from payment instructions.
This latest development complements SWIFT’s integrated gpi pre-validation service, which is aimed at identifying and eliminating errors and omissions in payment messages, prior to payment initiation. Integrated directly into SWIFT gpi, the serviceswill ultimately be made available to all 10,000 banks across the SWIFT network.
Harry Newman, Head of Banking at SWIFT, said:“In our drive towards frictionless payments, we are working together with banks and software providers to bring in a fully integrated, network-wide service to ensure a smooth payments process. It has been a consistent bug-bear of many banks that, whilst only a minority of payments are held up by errors and missing information, they are frustrating, time-consuming and costly. Ultimately all 10,000banks on the network will be able to use these tools seamlessly to resolve them.”
The newservicewill speed up the resolution of operational, compliance andregulatory-relatedissues that can arise along the payments chain.While relatively infrequent, these issues can currently take a long time to resolve. Such issues can arise from missing or incorrect information – such as the reason for payment or settlement date, or differences in regulatory controls and requirements across jurisdictions –all of whichrequire additional information and validation.
Interbank efforts to resolve these blockages often involve multiple requests and responses across chains of banks. The use of unstructured, unstandardised messagesprevents automated processing, resulting in time-consuming and costly processes.
Available in the cloud, and through a combination of the gpi tracking function and standardised industry protocols, the service will improve transparency, shorten resolution time and reduce the need for manual interventions. Users will be able to locate any hold-ups via the gpi tracker, as well as identify the beneficiary or intermediary banks that may be causing them. Using API calls, and the gpi tracker, they will then be able to automatically exchange the required information directly with the relevant banks. For smaller users, a GUI will be provided to handle the case requests and responses.
Using a standardised ISO 20022 format,the banks will be able to exchange requests and responses in a structuredmanner –thereby ensuring more efficient case resolution.Facilitating 14 enquiry types and covering three payment types (customer credit transfers, financial institution transfers, cover payments) the architecture is designed to make the service future-proof and extendable to cover any field of any payments message.
Mark McNulty, Global Head Clearing & FI Payments at Citi, said:In addition to our goal of providing real-time ubiquitous cross-border payments, our ambition is to ensure that any associated customer enquiries are transacted real-time. gpicase resolution is a very important step forward as it provides the platform for banks, across the payment chain, to interact in a far more dynamic, efficient and transparent manner than today and thus ultimately better serve our clients. Case resolution is well placed to build on the scale and reach of gpi to transform how enquiries associated with cross-border payments are resolved.”
Peng Hua, Deputy General Manager, Operation Management Department at Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, said: “ICBC is extremely willing to participate in the application and promotion of the SWIFT gpi case resolution service as a market forerunner. It can be predicted that through the implementation of SWIFT gpi case resolution service, banks can achieve rapid exchange of standardised investigation information, improve the efficiency of requests and responses and provide customers with premium cross-border clearing service and outstanding structured resolution.”
Jean-François Mazure, Head of cash clearing services atSocieteGenerale, said:SocieteGenerale is enthusiastic to be taking part in another SWIFT gpi initiative. This new service streamlines the investigation process and definitively accelerates the resolution of cases. This fits in perfectly with the banking industry’s innovation dynamic that constantly strives to improve service quality as well as optimise operational costs.”
In the first stage of its launch, the service will be piloted by 12 major banks and three case management software providers. The 12 banks taking part in the pilot are Bank of China, BNP Paribas, BNY Mellon, Citi, Deutsche Bank, Emirates NBD, Gazprombank, HSBC, ICBC, SMBC (Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation), SocieteGenerale andStandard Chartered. The three case management software providers taking part are Appian, Pega and Syracom. The serviceis scheduledto go live inNovember 2019.
SWIFT gpi
The SWIFT global payments innovation (SWIFT gpi) is the largest change in cross-border payments over the last 30 years and is the new standard. SWIFT gpi dramatically improves the customer experience in cross-border payments by increasing their speed, transparency and end-to-end tracking. Hundreds of thousands of cross-border payments, totalling over $300bn, are sent every day using the new gpi standard. Payments are made quickly, typically within minutes, even seconds.
SWIFT gpi allows corporates to receive an enhanced payments service, with the following key features:
• Faster, same day use of funds within the time zone of the receiving gpi member
• Transparency of fees
• End-to-end payments tracking
• Remittance information transferred unaltered
With SWIFT gpi, the correspondent banking community, together with fintechs, corporates, and others, is collectively removing frictions and reducing the costs associated with cross-border payments. Since its launch in January 2017, gpi has dramatically improved the cross-border payments experience for corporates in over 1,100 country corridors. Key features of SWIFT gpi include enhanced business rules and a secure tracking database in the cloud accessible via APIs. New gpi services are routinely developed with the gpi member community and rolled out to the growing network of banks.
Thanks to SWIFT gpi, corporates can grow their international business, improve supplier relationships, and achieve greater treasury efficiencies.On average, 40% of SWIFT gpi payments are credited to end beneficiaries within 5 minutes. 50% are credited within 30 minutes; 75% within 6 hours; and almost 100% within 24 hours.
Already, 3,500 banks accounting for 85% of SWIFT’s total payments traffic have committed to adopting gpi and more than 55 payment market infrastructures are already exchanging gpi payments, enabling domestic exchange and tracking. Payment market infrastructures have a critical role to play in facilitating the end-to-end tracking of cross-border payments because as soon as international payments hit the destination country, they are typically cleared through local payment infrastructures.
About SWIFT
SWIFT is a global member owned cooperative and the world’s leading provider of secure financial messaging services. We provide our community with a platform for messaging and standards for communicating, and we offer products and services to facilitate access and integration, identification, analysis and regulatory compliance.
Our messaging platform, products and services connect more than 11,000 banking and securities organisations, market infrastructures and corporate customers in more than 200 countries and territories. While SWIFT does not hold funds or manage accounts on behalf of customers, we enable our global community of users to communicate securely, exchanging standardised financial messages in a reliable way, thereby supporting global and local financial flows, as well as trade and commerce all around the world.
As their trusted provider, we relentlessly pursue operational excellence; we support our community in addressing cyber threats; and we continually seek ways to lower costs, reduce risks and eliminate operational inefficiencies. Our products and services support our community’s access and integration, business intelligence, reference data and financial crime compliance needs. SWIFT also brings the financial community together – at global, regional and local levels – to shape market practice, define standards and debate issues of mutual interest or concern. SWIFT’s strategic five year plan, SWIFT2020, challenges SWIFT to continue investing in the security, reliability and growth of its core messaging platform, while making additional investments in existing services and delivering new and innovative solutions.
Headquartered in Belgium, SWIFT’s international governance and oversight reinforces the neutral, global character of its cooperative structure. SWIFT’s global office network ensures an active presence in all the major financial centres.

1 comment:

  1. Thank you for sharing such a nice and interesting blog and really very helpful article.

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