SWIFT for corporates had another great year with 240 corporate groups joining the network. Of the new joiners, 60% are directly connected to SWIFT, including 53% which opted for Alliance Lite2 or Lite2 for Business Application (L2BA). SWIFT claim that these Alliance Lite cloud-based solutions provide a single, cost-effective communication channel for corporates to reach thousands of financial institutions worldwide with no need for complex integration into the back office systems.

Increased market penetration of small corporates continues

Surprisingly, only 45% in the Global Fortune 500 companies now have a SWIFT connection. More and more midcaps and smaller corporates are also connecting: 47% of corporates joining SWIFT in 2015 had a turnover of less than 1 Billion USD and 31% have a turnover of less than 500 Million USD.

Message growth

In 2015 there was also strong traffic growth across all message types, including 20% increase on FIN traffic, 19% increase on FileAct, and 21% increase on ISO 20022 formatted messages.

Bank Readiness service suppport rollout

The growth in certified banks continues with 37 out of the top 40 corporate access providers (SCORE banks) now being certified in the SWIFT Bank Readiness Certification Programme. The total number of ceritified banks has increased 16% in 2015. Corporates can now easily identify banks that can fully support their SWIFT connection via the Bank Readiness online portal, including more than 700 banks, representing 65 banking groups in 130+ countries.

Growing portfolio of non-network services for corporates  

SWIFT claim that “more and more corporates are benefiting from SWIFT services even without being connected to the SWIFT network.” This is through the use of SWIFTRef, MyStandards, 3SKey and TSU/BPO solutions.