SWIFT, a global member-owned cooperative and provider of secure financial messaging services, announced on Wednesday it is bringing benefits of gpi to DLT and trade ecosystems through its new partnership with blockchain enterprise software firm, R3.
SWIFT reported that to support the growing demand amongst trade ecosystems for secure and reliable settlement, it has launched a proof of concept (PoC) to trial a new gateway to interlink trade and e-commerce platforms with gpi, the new standard in cross-border payments. The company also revealed the first stage of the PoC will work on R3’s blockchain platform, Corda, to bring the benefits of gpi payments – speed, ubiquity, and certainty to distributed ledger technology (DLT)-enabled trade.
“The PoC addresses the need for e-commerce and trade ecosystems to be supported by global, fast, secure and transparent settlement using fiat currencies by enabling ‘off-ledger’ payment settlement based on gpi.”
In the PoC, corporates using the R3 platform will be able to do the following:
- authorise payments from their banks via gpi Link
- settle gpi payments through their bank
- receive credit confirmations on the respective trade platforms via gpi Link on completion
Luc Meurant, SWIFT’s Chief Marketing Officer, then stated:
“All trade platforms require tight linkages with trusted, fast and secure cross-border payments mechanisms such as gpi. While DLT-enabled trade is taking off, there is still little appetite for settlement in crypto-currencies and a pressing need for fast and safe settlement in fiat currencies.”
David E. Rutter, CEO of R3 added:
“Following the recent launch of our Corda Settler, allowing for the payment of obligations raised on the Corda platform, it was a logical extension to plug into SWIFT gpi. SWIFT gpi has rapidly become the new standard to settle payments right across the world. All the blockchain applications running on Corda will thus benefit from the fast, secure and transparent settlement provided through the SWIFT gpi banks.”