Swift and a coalition of banks, payment schemes, and technology firms have begun work on linking popular domestic instant-payment systems so that consumers can send money abroad using the same simple identifiers they already use at home.
The initiative, announced on 28 September 2026, focuses on three widely adopted national platforms: Spain’s Bizum, Australia’s PayID (operated by Australian Payments Plus), and Brazil’s Pix.
Millions of people already use these services to transfer funds inside their own countries by entering a mobile number, email address, or virtual payment alias rather than a full bank account number.
The new collaboration aims to make those same aliases work for international transfers routed over the Swift network.
Participating organisations from four continents include Australian Payments Plus, Bizum, Bradesco, BBVA, CaixaBank, Commonwealth Bank of Australia, Banorte, Citizens Bank, DBS, IDFC FIRST Bank, Ouribank, TerraPay and Veritran, among others.
The project will securely match aliases already stored in the domestic systems so that a sender in one market can reach a recipient in another without exchanging traditional account details.
The effort sits on top of Swift’s consumer payments framework, which launched in June and now includes more than 100 banks.
That framework already emphasises full-value delivery, clearer cost and timing information, and the fastest settlement possible at global scale.
Swift reports that 75 percent of payments sent across its network now arrive at the receiving bank within ten minutes, and many complete in seconds.
Juan Martinez, managing director of Swift’s payments platform, described the goal as making an international transfer “as simple as sending it at home.”
He said the industry has already improved speed and predictability and is now targeting the first step of the customer journey—the moment a user chooses whom to pay.
Executives from the participating schemes and banks echoed that theme.
Lynn Kraus, chief executive of Australian Payments Plus, noted that Australians already treat PayID as the default way to send money and called the prospect of extending that convenience across borders “really exciting.”
Officials from Banorte, BBVA, Bizum, Bradesco and Ouribank similarly highlighted the potential to reduce friction, improve accessibility and connect national instant payment ecosystems to a global rail.
The work is framed as a practical next step rather than a finished product.
It is intended to test how existing alias directories can interoperate securely while preserving the speed and simplicity users expect from domestic instant payments.
If successful, the approach could eventually let a Pix user in Brazil send funds to a Bizum user in Spain, or a PayID holder in Australia reach a recipient elsewhere, using only the identifiers they already know.
The project also aligns with broader G20 objectives for cheaper, faster and more transparent cross-border payments. By starting with established, high-volume domestic systems rather than building an entirely new front-end, Swift and its partners hope to reuse infrastructure that consumers already trust.
