The Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) has unveiled plans to bridge traditional banking and digital assets. In a Sept. 11 blog post, SWIFT announced its initiative to offer partner banks access to digital tokenized solutions, including payment gateways and blockchain interoperability.
SWIFT, which connects 518 institutions across 22 countries, aims to merge traditional finance with the growing crypto and Web3 industries.
Through recent trials, SWIFT successfully linked its traditional infrastructure with private and public blockchain networks, demonstrating the interoperability of crypto tokens. Additionally, the firm conducted two-phase central bank digital currency (CBDC) trials with banks from Europe, Asia, and North America.
Building on these successes, SWIFT plans to expand decentralized features to partner banks, allowing seamless transactions across various assets and currencies.
Initially, the system will use fiat currencies for settlement, with plans to support tokenized money, such as CBDCs, tokenized bank money, and regulated stablecoins in the future. Upcoming features include multi-ledger Delivery-versus-Payment (DvP) and Payment-versus-Payment (PvP) transactions.
The move has stirred mixed reactions in the crypto community. While some see the integration of decentralized solutions into traditional finance as a positive step, others are debating which token should be used. XRP advocates argue for XRP tokens on the SWIFT platform, citing their use on the XRP ledger.
However, Chainlink’s community head, Zach Rynes, pointed out that SWIFT is already collaborating with Chainlink’s Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol (CIP) to connect member banks to public and private chains.
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