American Express Bank and Fortis Bank have commited to significant volume increases on SwiftNet in return for discounts as part of Swift's traffic growth incentive programme.
The new incentivisation programme builds upon Swift’s existing global tier system. Users who commit for two years to 20% more than their current yearly network-based invoice can spend up to 40% more, which means that the additional traffic comes at half the price.
"We immediately recognised the benefits of the programme," says Anthony DeSimone, executive director of global operations at American Express Bank. "Payments and cash management is a key strategic growth area for us and we are working on a number of new projects that will grow our Swift traffic even more. We see this as a win-win situation, for our client business as well as for our bottom line."
Marc Aguilar, general manager of payments at Fortis Bank, says the initiative puts the bank at a competitive advantage to other banks in the same global tier.
"Fortis Bank is now able to benefit from lower prices based on a commitment of future volumes," he says. "At the same time, we are exploring all opportunities to move new traffic over to Swift. As the SwiftNet infrastructure is now fully deployed, more volumes on SwiftNet will help us decrease the total cost of ownership per unit."