The banks which have joined the network recently include Axis Bank, Banco do Brasil, Bank of Nova Scotia, CaixaBank, Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, Credit Agricole, ICICI Bank, Rabobank, and Swedbank, among others.
By joining the initiative, the banks will comply with a set of strict business rules, which are designed by Swift in collaboration with participating banks, to improve their approach to cross border payments.
Swift global head of banking market and project lead for this initiative Wim Raymaekers said: "It is great to see so many banks from all corners of the globe participating in Swift’s global payments innovation initiative.
"Together, they do nearly 75% of all cross-border payments on the Swift network. We welcome additional banks to join this open initiative."
As part of the initiative, banks will offer improved payment services to their corporate clients, by providing same day use of funds, transparency of fees, end-to-end tracking, and transfer of rich payment information.
Swift said that it is developing a database ‘in the cloud’ to provide end-to-end visibility on the status of a payment transaction.
Raymaekers added: "This new payments tracker is a great example of collaborative innovation. For the first time, banks will be able to give their customers precise information about their payments, in real-time, including confirmation of credit to beneficiary’s account."
Rabobank financial logistics head said: "The global payments innovation initiative offers customers benefits in terms of speed, predictability and transparency of cross border payments. Participation in this initiative is a logical step for Rabobank."
The Swift’s network, which is regarded as the backbone for money transfers, is used by banks to perform billions of dollars transactions daily.
It recently asked banks to share information on cyber attacks in order to avoid hacking attacks similar to Bangladesh central bank.
The announcement was made after the hackers stole a whopping $81m from the Bangladesh central bank by using Swift messages.
Image: Swift adds 73 banks to global payments initiative. Photo courtesy of Stuart Miles/FreeDigitalPhotos.net.
