Back in July 2019, more than 50 banks and corporations signed up with SWIFT to initiate SWIFT GPI tracking of international payments as a way to enhance e-commerce and cross-border business in advance of the November 2020 deadline for users of SWIFT’s payments clearing system.
This followed a test of the service in 2018 by 22 large corporations and banks including Airbus, Booking.com, General Electric, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, BNP Paribas, Citi, Deutsche Bank, JP Morgan, Société Générale, and Standard Chartered Bank.
Now the UK’s Standard Chartered Bank becomes the first bank to launch a public payments portal for its customers allowing companies and payees to track payments status.
Lisa Robins, Global Head of Transaction Banking at Standard Chartered said, “Corporations and financial institutions around the world rely on the confirmation of payments to facilitate the movement of goods and services in order to support the healthy growth of supply chains. Given our longstanding history of supporting trade flows across Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, we are continuously looking at ways to enhance the trust and dependability of cross-border payments. The SC GPI Track further demonstrates our commitment to deliver innovative solutions and provide a better and more efficient banking experience for our clients.”
Quick, transparent payment tracking
The service works in much the same way as tracking package deliveries. Business customers of Standard Chartered and their payees can now verify payment status easily and transparently by entering SWIFT’s unique end-to-end transaction reference (UETR) associated with the cross-border payment on the public portal.
When fully implemented by November 2020, SWIFT gpi will allow multi-banked companies to track payments quickly and easily and 10,000 international banks using SWIFT will be required to provide payments tracking and verification.
“[GPI] creates a rule book which standardizes and centralizes their multi-bank information, providing unrivaled visibility, as well as saving them time and money. Over 50 corporates and banks, including nine of the ten top cash management banks, have already signed up, and we expect this number to grow significantly in the coming months,” Marc Delbaere, Head of Corporates and Trade at SWIFT said last year.
In developing the service, SWIFT also worked with banks and global corporations as well as with leading treasury software providers including Bellin, FIS, Kyriba and SAP which have integrated SWIFT gpi for corporates into their applications.
While way overdue, it remains to be seen whether SWIFT gpi also reduces costs in addition to making cross-border payments more transparent, faster and verifiable for business customers and consumers.
It may also spur more fintech and digital-only competitors to add even further to their menu of less expensive payments services. And, there’s always cryptocurrency and other digital currency disruptors on the horizon including the Chinese government’s plans for a state digital currency.
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