Breaking: 25 Percent of SWIFT Cross-Border Payments Now Made via GPI
The firm launched its speedy cross-border payments service last year and it has since gained huge traction with firms

The Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT), a financial messaging services provider, announced today that 25 percent of its cross-border payment traffic is being sent over the company’s recently launched global payments innovation (GPI).
SWIFT GPI was launched in the middle of 2017. Its goal was to increase the speed, transparency, and tracking of cross-border payments, areas of business that have traditionally been time-consuming and easily susceptible to error. The company wants to set GPI payments as company standard by 2020.
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Since going live last year, 165 banks have signed up to the service – representing 80 percent of SWIFT’s cross-border payments traffic. Of those 165 banks, 49 are counted amongst the world’s top 50 banking institutions.
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The rapid rate of adoption by these financial institutions is a tribute to both their demand for a fast-paced cross-border payments system and SWIFT’s ability to provide one. The company noted that 50 percent of payments made using the service are completed and credited to the end beneficiary’s account in less than 30 minutes.
SWIFT’s launching of the GPI comes at a time of rapid change in the payments industry. With numerous start-ups muscling into an area of business that has been slow to adapt new technology that could dramatically improve services.
Commenting on the success of the product thus far, Harry Newman, SWIFT’s Head of Banking said: “It’s clear that the global payments industry needs to evolve in order to provide customers with a modern service that meets their expectations. As a truly global, fast, secure and transparent cross-border service, GPI is delivering real and tangible change, and the increase in its use is testament to the huge benefits it delivers to end customers.”
Can the editor elaborate on the differences between “traditional” SWIFT wire transfer and this new GPI method? How were they able to make the payments faster? I assumed it was all electronic before, so what makes GPI different?
Ripple on the other hand is based on disruptive distributed ledger technology[DLT] standards and has further enhanced the framework using ILP [InterLedger Protocol] to address interoperability and scalability issues. Ripple Product Suite consists of various payment processing technologies – RippleNet, xCurrent, ILP, xRapid and xVia. These technologies offer revolutionary standards in payment processing standards on speed, tracking, scalability and liquidity, thereby emerging as main competitor to SWIFT’s monopoly. Ripple offers payment processing standards which confirms payment finality within seconds whereas SWIFT GPI promises payments within 30 minutes or within 24 -hour time frame.
Every organization and country wants to debut their new token these days – but few are thinking about the integration, utility, and “productionalization” of it – meaning how it will interconnect in the real world. This is where Ripple, XRP, and they the InterLedger Protocol shine