SWIFT to launch pilot blockchain project

Its purpose is to provide accurate data for financial companies

14.09.2022 - 07:30

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What’s new? SWIFT has announced work on a pilot project in the field of blockchain technologies in collaboration with fintech company Symbiont. The pilot project is designed to “help providers distribute data in near real time to global custody clients.” Bloomberg reports about this.

News on the Bloomberg website

SWIFT is an international system for the transmission of financial messages between banks. It was founded in 1973 by 248 banks from 19 countries. Currently, it is represented in 200 countries and processes more than 5 billion financial messages annually. SWIFT is a cooperative society under Belgian law and is owned by its members.

What else is known about the project? Through Assembly, Symbiont’s proprietary technology platform, smart contracts will be used to create a network of more than 11 000 institutions connected to SWIFT worldwide. According to Tom Zschach, Chief Innovation Officer at SWIFT, combining Symbiont’s Assembly and smart contracts with SWIFT’s vast network will automatically reconcile data from multiple sources, as well as compare information sent between participants, flagging discrepancies, contradictions, or inconsistencies.

Companies participating in the initiative by SWIFT and Symbiont include Vanguard, Citigroup, American Century Investments, and Northern Trust.

In May, SWIFT began testing international transfers using central bank digital currencies (CBDCs). A report on the SWIFT website noted that this is a new step towards seamless cross-border payments using national digital currencies.

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