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SWIFT not getting it at EBA Day

15 June 2011 1 comment

Gary Wright

Analyst

BISS Research

SWIFT have been making lots of noise about getting corporates connected to their network. Sounds good and with SWIFT lite they appear to have a solution which has a cheap user charge for small or medium corporates however, costs are there and can be considerable.

Firstly connecting to SWIFT lite by integrating to whatever legacy treasury system is used means cost. Secondly to gain the knowledge required looks like consultancy and cost. Thirdly to produce the end solution that fits the payment bank requirements is costly to run and of course there are also the bank's costs.

Although a bank might reduce costs for SWIFT connectivity for a small to medium sized corporate, the overall costs still look very high and prohibitive in taking part.

There is more work to be done on this by SWIFT and I suspect their banks and vendors before this offering becomes attractive to corporates. That's the way it looks at EBA day at least.

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EBAday is the annual event for European payments professionals organised by Finextra and the Euro Banking Association. This community has been created to deliver a forum for EBA delegates to exchange views on instant payments, open banking and new developments in payments processing and technology.

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Comments: (2)

Ketharaman Swaminathan Founder and CEO at GTM360 Marketing Solutions

17 June 2011

While costs may be high, the few case studies I've come across demonstrate abundant benefits. Despite a strong business case, if SWIFT connectivity hasn't gained enough traction among corporates and SMBs, it seems to me that SWIFT and its resellers haven't done enough to provide a compelling reason to buy that resonates with their prospective customers' pain areas. Maybe they should take a leaf out of the marketing playbooks of ERP vendors who've managed to grow their revenues constantly by selling to corporates and SMBs over the years despite high license, consulting and maintenance costs against a backdrop of less than perfect track record of successful implementations.

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Gary Wright

Author 17 June 2011

Thanks for your comment

Yes there is benefits for Corporates but they dont see it. They have costs to connect to SWIFT and then operate. The low cost tarrif that SWIFT offer EURO per month 250 is still on top of Bank charges. Allthough i am sure Banks would offer a price incentive for Corporate using SWIFT

The overall start up and ongoing running costs just look far to expensive when the Corporate does not understand the technology,benefits or why they should be undertaking operations they pay the Banks to do

More knowladge needed by the corporates and more inventive commercials by the banks to get the ball rolling

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