Swift has made the initial phase of its blockchain-based ledger available for use, with banks preparing to pilot live transactions.
The financial messaging network is enabling 17 global banks to pilot 24/7 cross-border payments using tokenised deposits through the new ledger.
The shared ledger provides participating financial institutions with a secure orchestration layer.
Banks can issue tokenised deposits on their own internal systems and move funds for customers at any time, including overnight and on weekends. Final settlement is then completed through existing payment infrastructure.
Institutions involved in the initiative span six continents.
Banks preparing to pilot live transactions include ANZ, BNP Paribas, BNY, Citi, DBS, First Abu Dhabi Bank, FirstRand Bank, HSBC, and Itaú Unibanco.
Lloyds Bank, Mashreq, MUFG Bank, OCBC, Standard Chartered, UBS, UOB, and Wells Fargo are also part of the initial phase.
“With our new ledger capability, we are extending the trust and stability of established finance into the frontiers of digital money,”
said Thierry Chilosi, Chief Business Officer at Swift.
“It allows tokenised value to move across borders with the velocity and flexibility modern commerce expects.”
Swift designed and built the ledger in nine months following feedback from international financial institutions.
The cooperative views the rollout as the first use case for a technology stack that could support future applications such as programmable money and agentic commerce.
The ledger will expand in functionality after the initial controlled rollout. It builds on recent upgrades to existing Swift infrastructure, where 75% of payments on the network reach beneficiary banks within 10 minutes.
Swift is also implementing a retail payments framework to improve fee transparency and delivery speeds for consumer transactions.