In 2013, the multi-bank standards for documentary trade (MT 798) and the new ISO 20022 payment instrument for securing and financing trade transactions (BPO) laid an important platform for SWIFT’s supply chain initiatives:

Rollout of the MT 798 standards for Letters of Credit and Demand Guarantees

1. 20+ banks are live on the MT 798
2. 10+ corporates are live on the MT 798
3. All leading trade vendors are certified by SWIFT

Rollout out of the ISO 20022-based Bank Payment Obligation instrument

1. 18 of the top 20 trade banks are adopting the BPO; half of them are either live or ready for live
2. 146 banks are connected to the Trade Services Utility representing 83 banking groups
3. 25 corporates are live on BPO, mainly in Asia Pacific
4. Syrtals and TradeWiz are the two first SWIFT certified trade consultancies

In 2014, SWIFT hope it, “will be the year for more banks and corporates to benefit from such recent developments. To this end, we will focus on developing industry-specific Corporate value propositions and engage early adopters in that process. We will also combine SWIFT’s messaging solutions and ICC’s payment instruments with 3rd party innovations such as Electronic Shipping Solutions (ESS) CargoDocs, which digitizes shipping and trade documentation in the corporate-to-corporate space.”