The global payments innovation initiative (GPII) was launched in December 2015 to address weaknesses in cross-border payments. What progress has been made since then?  

Increasing regulation, risk and compliance costs are driving banks to rationalise their correspondent banking networks, meaning there is a need to re-think cross-border payments. The GPII was created with the goal of developing new cross-border payment mechanisms that are faster, more transparent and with improved predictability. And it aimed to do this by engaging with fintechs to collaborate on new products, such as real-time payment status tracking, the use of peer-to-peer messaging and blockchain technology. According to SWIFT, the GPII is designed to “significantly improve the customer experience in correspondent banking by increasing the speed, transparency and end-to-end tracking of cross-border payments”.

Pilot success

The initiative uses SWIFT's Innotribe programme and so far 86 banks have signed up. A pilot was launched in April this year, in which 15 global banks representing more than 30 per cent of cross-border payments successfully tested the design and core functions of the GPII, while in parallel, 10 additional global banks started to prepare for the service’s launch. SWIFT has said that the service is scheduled to go live in Q1 2017.

Wim Raymaekers, SWIFT's global head of the banking market and project lead for the initiative, said the pilot was a success: “The GPII pilot banks prove that our innovative approach to cross-border payments works.” Banks participating in the pilot also said that the preliminary results from the pilot were encouraging.

Features of GPII

The GPII has initially focused on B2B payments, enabling corporates to receive an enhanced payments service directly from their banks, with the following key features:

• same-day use of funds;
• transparency and predictability of fees;
• end-to-end payments tracking; and
• transfer of rich payment information.

SWIFT claims this will help corporate customers to “manage their cash positions more efficiently, improve supplier and customer relationships, save costs and resources on payment investigations, and ultimately grow their international business”.