SWIFT announced today that almost half of SWIFT GPI payments are completed within 30 minutes and almost all are done within 24 hours. Payments that take longer to process are typically delayed because of complex foreign exchange conversions, compliance checks or regulatory authorisations, said the organisation.

Payment tracking benefit for corporates

SWIFT GPI was launched in January 2017 and has been adopted by more than 150 financial institutions globally, and is also used by 50 payment market infrastructures. SWIFT said in its statement: “Payment market infrastructures have a critical role to play in facilitating the end-to-end tracking of cross-border payments because as soon as international payments hit the destination country, they are typically cleared through local payment infrastructures. By being able to continue to track the payments in real-time, banks and their corporate clients can optimise their funds.”

SWIFT's Harry Newman explained: “In addition, banks receive fewer queries and have told us their enquiry-related costs are reduced by as much as 50 per cent when they use SWIFT GPI.”

The organisation said that payments are being sent across 220 country corridors and that more than USD 100 billion in GPI payments are made each day.