SWIFT gpi is continuing their mission to make cross-border payments as seamless as possible with a roadmap of new services designed to reduce friction and to deliver more value for both financial institutions and corporates. At SIBOS 2019 in London Swift organised a workshop on the main new services under development in which they discussed the main elements of each of the new services based on artwork summarising the work on the new service and the approach taken. All of the new development uses ISO 20022 standards.

Cross-border request to pay service 

Swift and their partners asked, “Can an international request to pay capability implemented under a SWIFT gpi SLA offer a more secure, flexible and cost-effective solution for corporates to collect cross-border payments?” SWIFT gathered seven gpi member banks and three corporates to work with the FinTech Assembly Payments, as part of a gpi innovation Proof of Value challenge to examine this question. Their answer was a resounding YES, as the figure below shows:

Source & Copyright©2019 – Swift 

The banks and corporates concluded that were three important benefits for both buyer and seller.

Swift plans to demonstrate a ‘Request-to-Pay’ prototype in 2020.

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CTMfile take: This new service, when it is rolled out globally, will improve the efficiency of global trade significantly. But the worrying question is when will it be available globally? Will it be 2022?