Global payment firms Swift and Wise have on Tuesday announced an innovative collaboration to increase cross-border payment options for financial institutions and their customers, enabling payments sent securely via Swift to complete seamlessly over Wise with end-to-end transparency.

The duo said in a statement on Tuesday that financial institutions seeking to innovate their offerings will be able to route Swift
payment messages directly to Wise Platform – Wise’s infrastructure solution for banks and major enterprises – through its latest correspondent services solution.

This will enable their customers to benefit from the speed and convenience of Wise, and the breadth of Swift without needing to implement any major changes to their systems.

According to the statement, Wise Platform will harness advanced Swift capabilities to power its service, including cloud and application programming interface (API) connectivity and payment pre-validation and will continue to offer banks all the hallmark features of Swift GPI, including a payment status tracker which Wise Platform will update to ensure end-to-end view across both networks.

The collaboration is the start of a broader relationship, and comes as increased innovation and fragmentation in the financial ecosystem is creating more ways for money to move — and more consumer demand for choice.

It reflects the importance of new forms of collaboration to provide optionality, while maintaining secure, reliable and inclusive connectivity.

Besides, it is directly aligned with both G20 and UN Sustainable Development goals on the speed, transparency, cost and access of cross-border transactions.

“We know that banks face a number of challenges when it comes to enhancing their international payments, including that this often requires them to embed technology which is incompatible with legacy infrastructure,

“By simultaneously leveraging existing payments architecture and optimizing payouts using Wise’s global network, we are empowering banks to innovate effortlessly,” said Steve Naudé, Managing Director of Wise Platform.

According to him, the firm’s network, combined with Swift’s extensive reach and trackability, will make international payments more convenient, faster and lower cost for banks, without necessitating a major tech build.

“Wise’s global payments network enables over 57 percent of customers’ cross-border payments to settle instantly (in under 20 seconds), and over 90 percent to settle in under an hour,

“By leveraging Wise Platform’s Correspondent Services solution, financial institutions only need to make one simple configuration change and their customers will instantly benefit from faster, lower-cost and more convenient international payments,” he added.

Meanwhile, Swift Chief Strategy Officer Thierry Chilosi said that the firm has built an infrastructure that connects the world, that is trusted and relied upon every day.

“Our collaboration with Wise illustrates how Swift can be the bedrock from which the whole industry can innovate to improve cross-border payments and enhance the options available for customers across the globe,

“Cooperation such as this will be vital in our collective efforts to achieve the G20 targets for cross-border payments and enable the seamless, efficient and secure movement of value around a fragmented world,” he said.

Wise is a global technology company building the way to move money around the world.

Over the last decade, the firm has built an entirely new cross-border payments network that will one day power money without borders for everyone, everywhere.

With Wise Platform, large companies and banks can leverage Wise’s technology and embed the best way to send, receive, and manage money internationally into their existing infrastructure.

Wise Platform provides financial infrastructure for over 60 partners worldwide, including some of the world’s largest and most trusted banks, neobanks and business tool providers such as Bank Mandiri, IndusInd, Monzo, Google Pay, and Brex.

Swift is a global member owned cooperative and the world’s provider of secure financial messaging services.

The firm provides a platform for messaging and standards for communicating, and offers products and services to facilitate access and integration, identification, analysis and regulatory compliance.

Our messaging platform, products and services connect more than 11,500 banking and securities organizations, 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, it enables its global community of users to communicate securely, exchanging standardized financial messages in a reliable way, thereby supporting global and local financial flows, as well as trade and commerce all around the world.

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 centers.

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