The network handling the majority of modern international interbank messages, SWIFT (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication), has announced that 22 additional global banks have joined its blockchain proof of concept (PoC), designed to validate whether the technology can help banks reconcile their international nostro accounts in real time.

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The banks that have recently joined the PoC are: ABN AMRO Bank, ABSA Bank, Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria, China Construction Bank, China Minsheng Banking, Commerzbank, Deutsche Bank, Erste Group Bank, FirstRand Bank, Intesa Sanpaolo, JPMorgan Chase Bank, Lloyds Bank, Mashreq bank, Nedbank, RaboBank, Santander, Société Générale, Standard Bank of South Africa, Standard Chartered Bank, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation, UniCredit and Westpac Banking Corporation.

“Collaboration is the cornerstone of innovation,” says Wim Raymaekers, Head of Banking Markets and SWIFT gpi at SWIFT. “This new group of banks allows us to greatly extend the scope of multi-lateral testing of the blockchain application and thus add considerable weight to the findings. We warmly welcome the new banks and look forward to their insights.”

“The potential business benefits ensuing from the PoC are clear,” says Damien Vanderveken, Head of R&D, SWIFTLab and UX at SWIFT. “If banks could manage their nostro account liquidity in real time, it would allow them to accurately gauge how much money is required in each account at any given point, ultimately enabling them to free up significant funds for other investments.”

In developing the PoC, SWIFT is leveraging the Hyperledger Fabric v1.0.