Swift today published new data which reveals that half of transactions across its network reach recipient institutions within 40 seconds, as the financial industry makes strong progress towards the G20’s goal for the speed of cross-border payments.

The figures reflect a continued drive by Swift and the industry to make international payments fast, predictable and as seamless as the best domestic ones. Since June, banks globally have been using Swift’s retail payments framework to deliver a best-in-class experience along some of the world’s busiest payments routes, including to five of the biggest remittance-receiving markets. Under the framework, transactions have been completed end-to-end in minutes and even seconds—including from Turkey to Spain in 15 seconds, Australia to India in 37 seconds, and from Brazil to the US in just a minute.

However, Swift’s research has shown that while inter-bank processing times are fast, end customers don’t always benefit because of frictions that occur between a payment arriving at the receiving institution and being credited to the beneficiary’s account. This final stage of a transaction, known as the ‘last mile’, accounts for 80% of the average transaction’s total journey time.

Swift’s latest Spotlight on Speed report focuses on the drivers of delays and where improvements can be made, revealing wide variation in last mile processing times. The report analysed 40 receiving markets and found that in a third, median processing time between the receiving institution and the beneficiary account is around an hour. But in others, there is a mixed picture with fast payments existing alongside significantly slower transactions.

The findings highlight where co-ordinated action by the industry and regulators can help translate faster cross-border processing into a more consistent experience for customers. Swift’s report recommends that the industry prioritises ‘one-leg-out’ arrangements, which enable in-country instant payment systems to process the domestic leg of international payments. Swift’s global network already enables fast cross-border payments to some markets under one-leg-out agreements, with its end-to-end tracking capabilities extended across the domestic leg.

Thierry Chilosi, Chief Business Officer at Swift, said: “Cross-border processing speeds are consistently fast, but if we’re to deliver the experience that customers expect then the challenge now is to tackle the inconsistency that we see in the last mile in markets around the world. As we’ve shown over the last few months, connecting Swift’s trusted infrastructure with domestic instant payment systems is driving improvements in speed, predictability and transparency—so if we want to scale the improvements we’ve been making then these one-leg-out arrangements should absolutely be a priority.”

As well as working to bring the cross-border experience in line with what consumers have come to expect domestically, Swift is also enabling the benefits of digital finance to be experienced globally by its network of 12,500 institutions across 200+ markets. By the end of the year, 19 early-adopter financial institutions will have made use of Swift’s blockchain ledger for tokenised deposit transactions, using five major currencies.

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 12,500 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.

Headquartered in Belgium, Swift’s international governance and oversight reinforces the globally inclusive character of its cooperative structure. Swift’s global office network ensures an active presence in all the major financial centres.

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