SWIFT – Despite the factual assertion from the managing director of Ripple (XRP) in South Asia and MENA, Navin Gupta, that people are now drifting their transactional interest from high street banking to networking, The Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) continues to pull strings in the industry with its innovative schemes.
A recent report claiming that SWIFT global payments innovation (gpi) was responsible for more than 50% of messaging traffic across the interbank network indicates that the firm is not giving up in its competition with Ripple (XRP) in the remittance industry.
In spite of the 200+ financial institution customers the blockchain technology, Ripple (XRP), has been able attract, SWIFT gpi continues to witness adoption upsurge, shifting from 15% to 56% within a year (2018).
With the use of InterLedger Protocol (ILP), Ripple (XRP) has been able to satisfy users’ principal demand from banks. Nevertheless, SWIFT gpi still poses threat to the blockchain technology.
The gpi scheme, according to SWIFT was introduced to enhance optimum end-to-end delivery with full tracking and transparency of messages across the network.
By 2020, SWIFT will be moving all of its 10,000 member banks to gpi, and this will birth the unveiling of its new services which includes a collection of APIs that would enhance bank-to-bank interaction as well as post payment reconciliation.
Also, the APIs would give room for links to domestic payment schemes and interfaces to third party networks.
The CEO of SWIFT, Gottfried Leibbrandt, who will be steeping down June this year, noted that it is high time the firm realized its goal.
“We can now move quickly to realise our ambition of ensuring ubiquitous real-time – even instant – cross-border payments right around the world. By incorporating APIs, trialling distributed ledger technology and exploring new technologies such as predictive analytics, we will continue to deliver new functionalities and applications at pace – ensuring that the cross-border payments experience rapidly becomes as seamless as domestic payments,” Leibbrandt noted.
Previously, it was reported that Navin Gupta is eying SWIFT gpi’s tremendous achievements in the space. Gupta in a stated applauded the gpi scheme which was established in 2017 for the supports it was able to garner from over 240+ financial institutions and 60 other world top banks.
