Swift has taken a significant leap into the future of financial infrastructure by announcing the development of a blockchain-based shared ledger, a move set to transform cross-border payments into an always-on, real-time service. The announcement was made during Sibos 2025 in Frankfurt, where the organization revealed its prototype designed in partnership with blockchain technology firm Consensys.
The shared ledger aims to act as a secure, global transaction record for payments, enabling real-time settlement across banks and financial institutions. By leveraging blockchain’s immutable, transparent, and decentralized qualities, the solution promises to deliver faster, more secure, and more reliable cross-border transactions. This innovation is designed not as a replacement for Swift’s existing payment rails, but as an interoperable layer that enhances connectivity across traditional and emerging financial networks.
A central feature of the initiative is the use of smart contracts to handle the sequencing and validation of payments. These smart contracts will also integrate compliance checks, ensuring that transactions meet regulatory and anti-financial crime standards. According to Swift, this will streamline operations while reducing costs and risks for global banks.
Swift emphasized its dual-track strategy of simultaneously strengthening its existing financial messaging infrastructure while pioneering blockchain-based innovations. This approach aims to provide banks with the flexibility to manage current transaction flows and prepare for a digital-first future. The blockchain ledger will connect seamlessly with Swift’s ISO 20022 messaging standards, APIs, and compliance frameworks, ensuring that interoperability remains at the heart of the solution.
The first use case for the shared ledger is cross-border payments. Swift noted that it is collaborating with more than 30 major banks from 16 countries to co-design the system. Participating institutions include Bank of America, Citi, HSBC, JPMorgan, Deutsche Bank, BNP Paribas, Standard Chartered, Wells Fargo, ANZ, DBS, Emirates NBD, MUFG, RBC, Santander, Shinhan Bank, and UOB, among others. These banks are working with Swift to test how the ledger can provide predictability, transparency, and speed in settlement, while enabling better liquidity optimization and compliance automation.
In practical terms, the new infrastructure will allow payments to be initiated and settled instantly at any time of day, across more than 200 countries. This capability represents a dramatic improvement over existing models, where delays, limited operating hours, and fragmented systems often hinder efficiency. By integrating tokenised value and offering real-time visibility into transactions, the ledger also aims to support the next wave of innovation in digital assets and programmable money.
Swift CEO Javier Pérez-Tasso described the initiative as a natural evolution for the organization. “You may think, Swift and blockchain—opposites? In the regulated system of the future, we believe they go together. Banks are ready for it, and they’re asking us to play a bigger role,” he said during the Sibos 2025 keynote.
This move by Swift demonstrates a growing recognition within the financial sector that blockchain technology is no longer experimental, but central to the future of payments. By combining its trusted infrastructure with the capabilities of blockchain, Swift is positioning itself to remain at the forefront of global financial connectivity, bridging the gap between traditional banking systems and the digital economy.
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