SWIFT Introduces SWIFT Go, a Simplified and Cost-Effective Payment...
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SWIFT Introduces SWIFT Go, a Simplified and Cost-Effective Payment Service

CFO Tech Outlook | Tuesday, August 17, 2021

SWIFT Go enables banking institutions to provide a seamless payments experience for low-value transactions, which are frequently launched by SMEs paying overseas suppliers and consumers transferring money to friends and family.

FREMONT, CA: New service facilitates businesses and consumers to send payments in seconds with full transparency and robust security; SWIFT Go is a chief building block in the co-operatives strategy to allow instant and frictionless cross-border transactions; seven prime global banks already live with the service.

SWIFT, a leading provider of secure financial messaging services, recently announced the debut of SWIFT Go, a game-changing new service that allows small businesses and people to transmit low-value cross-border payments anywhere in the world, instantly from their bank accounts, in a fast, predictable, highly secure, and competitively priced manner. The service is already used by seven major banks, which handle 33 million low-value cross-border payments per year.

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Stephen Gilderdale, Chief Product Officer, at SWIFT said: “SWIFT Go is a further step towards achieving our vision of enabling anybody, anywhere, to send money instantly and securely around the world. The new service is a direct response to the needs of small businesses and consumers for fast, easy, predictable, secure and competitively priced cross-border payments. Our new service will allow banks to compete effectively in one of the fastest growing segments of the payments market, delivering a seamless experience for their customers.”

SWIFT Go enables banking institutions to provide a seamless payments experience for low-value transactions, which are frequently launched by SMEs paying overseas suppliers and consumers transferring money to friends and family. SWIFT Go empowers banks to provide their end consumers with a fast and predictable payments experience with upfront insight on processing times and costs by leveraging tighter service level agreements between institutions and pre-validation of data.

SWIFT Go relies on SWIFT gpi’s high-speed rails, which have revolutionized the speed and predictability of high-value payments. The service is another step forward in SWIFT’s ambition to enable quick and seamless transactions between accounts on its network, which connects more than 11,000 institutions and 4 billion accounts in 200 countries across the world. It will improve banks’ ability to service their customers in the fast-growing small business and consumer payments areas.

SWIFT Go is based on five fundamental pillars that were developed in close collaboration with the worldwide SWIFT community:

Speed: Tighter service levels between banks boost speed. A single payment format improves straight-through processing, while pre-validation services reduce friction that causes delays.

Predictability: A payment’s amount, time, fees, and FX rate are all known ahead of time. The status of payment can be tracked in real-time by both the sender and the receiver.

Easy to Use: The user experience is smooth and simplified, with data requirements are known upfront. SWIFT Go payments are simple to initiate and complete, thanks to strict network validation.

Competitive Pricing: Processing fees are agreed upon in advance between financial institutions so that their customers can have complete transparency; greater straight-through processing lowers processing costs even further.

Security: Senders and receivers may rest easy knowing that the SWIFT network’s robust security protects payments. BBVA, Bank of New York Mellon, MYBank, DNB, Sberbank, Société Générale, and UniCredit are among the seven largest global banks that have gone live with SWIFT Go.

Raouf Soussi, Head of Enterprise Payments Strategy of Client Solutions, BBVA said: BBVA is very excited to be one of the first banks to sign up to SWIFT Go. We recognize the potential of this solution to revolutionize the way SMEs and consumers move money around the world. We have listened closely to our customers, and we know how much they value a secure service that ensures payments reach their destination quickly and seamlessly.”

“It is no secret that for many years consumers and small businesses have been running into varying pain points when transacting international payments. These challenges have included opaque costs and lack of certainty on how quickly funds are delivered to the final beneficiary. This is why BNY Mellon is pleased to be the first US bank to go live with SWIFT Go, a new service that overcomes all of these challenges and assists financial institutions in delivering a competitive, seamless, fast and predictable payments experience to their customers,” added Isabel Schmidt, Head of Direct Clearing and Asset Account Services Products, Bank of New York Mellon.

“SWIFT gpi has become the benchmark for high-value cross-border transactions and we are confident that SWIFT Go will be equally as transformative for SME payments. By providing for instant, seamless transactions within one of the highest growth areas of our industry, we expect that adoption of SWIFT Go will be widespread and that it will quickly be established as the industry standard for lower value transactions,” said Feng Liang, Deputy CEO, MYBank.

Jean-François Mazure, Head of Cash Clearing and Correspondent Banking, Société Générale said: “As customer expectations for faster payments evolve, the correspondent banking industry requires a solution to more competitively process SME and consumer payments. SWIFT Go fits perfectly with it, allowing us to provide an outstanding experience to our customers with predictable, seamless, and frictionless low-value cross-border transactions reaching beneficiaries accounts quicker than ever.”

“UniCredit has long been a keen supporter of innovations within payments that deliver excellent outcomes for end-customers, and as such we are very proud of our involvement in SWIFT Go. This is a service that will lead to real benefits for SMEs and consumers, allowing them to enjoy the speed, predictability and transparency that SWIFT gpi has brought to high-value transactions,” added Raphael Barisaac, Global Head of Cash Management, Global Co-Head of Trade, UniCredit.

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