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SWIFT, a financial messaging platform, has announced the launch of SWIFT Go. Swift Go is a new service that enables small businesses and consumers to send fast, secure, and competitively priced cross-border payments globally, direct from their bank accounts. Seven global banks, which collectively handle 33 million low-value cross-border payments annually, are already live with the service.

SWIFT Go enables financial institutions to offer a convenient payments experience for low value transactions initiated by SMEs to pay suppliers and customers to make payments overseas.

Using tighter service level agreements between institutions and pre-validation of data, SWIFT Go enables banks to provide their end customers a fast and predictable payments experience. This is with upfront visibility on processing times and costs.

The SWIFT Go service builds on the high-speed rails of SWIFT gpi, which have transformed the speed and predictability of high-value payments.

Stephen Gilderdale, Chief Product Officer, at SWIFT commented, “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 was developed in collaboration with the global SWIFT community and is underpinned by several key pillars.

1. Speed: Tighter service levels between banks increase speed. A single payment format increases straight-through processing, while services such as pre-validation remove frictions that cause delays.
2. Predictability: The amount, time, fees and FX rate of a payment are known in advance. The sender and receiver of a payment can track the status in real-time.
3. Easy to use: The user experience is simple and streamlined, with data requirements known upfront. Strict network validation provides for easy initiation and processing of SWIFT Go payments
4. Competitive prices: Processing fees are agreed between financial institutions upfront so they can provide their customers with full transparency; increased straight-through processing further reduces processing costs.
5. Security: Senders and receivers have peace of mind that payments are underpinned by the strong security of the SWIFT network.