The financial messaging company Swift plans to begin live operations of digital assets and currencies in 2025. Some of the largest banks in North America, Europe, and Asia will be involved in these tests, which aim to demonstrate how traditional financial systems and cryptocurrencies converge.
Exciting news! Starting next year, financial institutions from around the world will start trialling live digital asset and currency transactions on the Swift network.
— Swift (@swiftcommunity) October 3, 2024
This marks an important milestone in our journey to enable banks to transact interchangeably across both… pic.twitter.com/70BxOMoBpT
Breaking Cross-Border Barriers
SWIFT facilitates connections among over 11,500 financial institutions. It plans to eliminate barriers to transferring fiat and cryptocurrencies across borders. In these trials, Swift is moving to the next level of its blockchain work from scenarios it has conducted so far, which are controlled trials. Swift is taking steps toward real-world application of its blockchain solutions.
The company noted that this will be the first time its infrastructure will enable live transactions of digital assets. This system lets financial institutions make transactions using their existing systems without any changes.
Fiat and Crypto Integration
Swift intends to integrate conventional and crypto-currency systems into its international network. The unified system will enable financial institutions to perform cross-border transactions with fiat currencies. It will also support transactions using modern digital assets.
The trials follow a pilot project with a Web3 services company called Chainlink. Through this, Swift connected to the Ethereum Sepolia test network. This showed that the company can bridge the public and private blockchain networks. These trials could also support other areas like tokenized assets. Over 130 countries are also exploring central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), a major focus.
Swiss Banks Collaborate to Test Blockchain-Based Swiss FrancTom Zschach, Swift’s Chief Innovation Officer, noted that combining digital and traditional assets into a single financial system is necessary. He stated:
For digital assets and currencies to succeed on a global scale, it’s critical that they can seamlessly coexist with traditional forms of money.
Unified Global Finance System
Swift has created a system that lets traditional and digital money work together. This helps keep the financial services sector stable.
During these trials, Swift has been building up its position as one of the top companies in digital finance. Company’s efforts could encourage financial institutions to accept digital assets. The platform aims to build trust and ensure stability in using these assets.
