Building on the success of gpi, SWIFT continues to enhance the service, and is introducing the ‘tracker for all’, making a standard version of the tracker available to all SWIFT customers. From 2019, all banks on the SWIFT network - not just those signed up to gpi - will be able to trace and confirm their SWIFT payment instructions, and have visibility over their payment activity. The rollout will give all SWIFT customers end-to-end tracking, quickly and efficiently - bringing greater transparency and cost reduction. The introduction of the ‘tracker for all’ will prepare the entire industry for universal gpi adoption by the end of 2020.

Improvements to SWIFT gpi go further. While gpi payments between gpi banks are being credited within minutes - often in seconds - payments involving domestic clearing are often delayed owing to the operating hours of domestic payment systems. As more and more countries offer domestic real-time payments 24/7, SWIFT has been working on making these cross-border payments instant as well. Over recent months SWIFT has been trialing the link-up of SWIFT gpi, via gpi members, to domestic real-time payments systems in the Asia-Pacific region. The trial showed that the average time taken for gpi payments sent from China, Singapore and Thailand to settle via a local correspondent bank and through the NPP (New Payments Platform), Australia’s real-time payments system, can be reduced to between 9 and 30 seconds (depending on the routing), down from several hours.

While this initial trial focussed on payments going into Australia, findings from the trial will be used to finalise a new SWIFT gpi instant cross-border payments service, which will extend gpi linkages to other real-time payment systems around the world.

While the instant cross-border payments effort remains underway, SWIFT has also launched gpi for Corporates (g4C) - a new multi-bank payments tracking solution on SWIFTgpi. The new service enables banks to provide gpi information to their corporate clients using FIN and ISO 20022 standards, thus allowing corporates to initiate and track their gpi payments to and from multiple banks in a single format. Corporates can thereby integrate their gpi flows into their ERP and Treasury Management Systems, gaining real-time, end-to-end views on their cross-border payments flows for the first time. The service is designed to improve corporate payment and cash management processes while reducing complexity, cost and the burden of handling exceptions and investigations.

Nine leading international corporates working together with seven gpi banks have so far successfully implemented multi-bank tracking of gpi payments in their treasury applications.

Harry Newman, Head of Banking at SWIFT, said: “Since we launched gpi last year, the enthusiasm and support has been off the charts, and gpi is already radically improving the day-to-day experience of banks and their corporate customers. The community has already achieved an enormous amount, but we are not sitting back and basking in the success - instead we are busy improving the service and fulfilling our promise to truly transform cross-border payments for everyone.”

The banks participating in the instant cross-border payments trial are: ANZ, Bangkok Bank, Bank of China, China Construction Bank, Commonwealth Bank, DBS, ICBC, KASIKORNBANK, NAB, Siam Commercial Bank, Standard Chartered Bank and United Overseas Bank.

Corporates and banks live on g4C include: Airbus, BBVA, Booking.com, Borealis, Citi, Deutsche Bank, General Electric, IATA, J.P. Morgan, LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, Microsoft, Ping An Group, Roche, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation, Société Générale and Standard Chartered Bank.