Standards body

Swift

Member-owned cooperative constituted under Belgian law in 1973 that carries the messaging instructing cross-border payments for more than 11,500 institutions; in September 2025 it said it would add a shared blockchain ledger for regulated tokenized value.

Kind Standards body

Jurisdiction European Union

Founded 1973

Stories filed 0

The profile

Cooperative constituted under Belgian law in 1973 and owned by its members, carrying the messaging that instructs cross-border payments and securities transactions for more than 11,500 institutions across over 200 countries and territories, at an average of more than 53 million FIN messages a day. It moves no money itself: banks and other institutions settle, while Swift sequences and standardises the instructions, and its ISO 20022 migration and gpi tracking define the data that accompanies most correspondent banking payments. On 29 September 2025 it said it would add a blockchain-based shared ledger to its own infrastructure, prototyped with Consensys and more than 30 institutions from 16 countries, to record and validate transfers of any form of regulated tokenized value, an attempt to keep the interoperability layer inside the cooperative rather than cede it to bilateral bank networks.

Frameworks and functions

Swift messaging network: Standardised financial messaging between member institutions, averaging more than 53 million FIN messages a day.
Swift gpi: Payment tracking and confirmation service that gives correspondent banking transfers an end-to-end reference and status.
Shared ledger: Blockchain-based ledger announced in September 2025, prototyped with Consensys and over 30 institutions to sequence and validate transfers of regulated tokenized value.

No development naming Swift has yet been filed against a primary source. The register entry stands so the institution, its jurisdiction and its products are on the record.

On the record

29 Sep 2025

Swift says it will add a blockchain-based shared ledger to its infrastructure

Swift said it would build a blockchain-based shared ledger into its infrastructure stack, initially for round-the-clock cross-border payments and the movement of regulated tokenised value, with smart contracts used to record, sequence and validate transactions. More than 30 financial institutions across 16 countries are working on the design, and Consensys was appointed to build the prototype for the first phase.