National cryptocurrencies have successfully passed SWIFT testing

The international payment system SWIFT has successfully tested national cryptocurrencies (CBDCs), which will now facilitate trade between 200 countries. Using SWIFT, central banks will be able to directly connect their networks to other payment systems through a single gateway.

According to SWIFT CIO Tom Zschach, government stablecoins of various national banks and tokenized assets have been successfully deployed in the financial infrastructure during two separate experiments. Fourteen central and commercial banks, including the Bank of France, the German Federal Bank, HSBC, Intesa Sanpaolo, NatWest, SMBC, Standard Chartered, UBS, and Wells Fargo, participated in the CBDC full-scale deployment test.

«Digital assets and tokens have a huge potential in payments and investments. But this potential can only be realized if we combine different approaches and work together. Central banks' digital currencies must be compatible with payment systems, and our solution will help unlock the possibilities of the digital future,» said Tom Zschach.

The testing has shown that asset tokenization platforms can be integrated into the infrastructure of the SWIFT international banking messaging system. In cooperation with banks and financial companies Citi, Clearstream, Northern Trust, and SETL, SWIFT has studied about 70 scenarios for the issuance and transfer of tokenized bonds, shares, and funds in the secondary market.

At the end of September, SWIFT signed an agreementwith Chainlink, an oracle provider, to test payment transactions using different blockchains. For the initial proof of concept, SWIFT will use the Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol (CCIP). The cooperation between the two companies will allow financial institutions to utilize blockchain capabilities without developing new services. In addition, there will be no need to modify outdated systems, as this would entail significant costs.

In addition to Chainlink, SWIFT representatives have started cooperation with the fintech company Symbiont by launching a pilot project. The goal is to provide accurate data to financial companies using blockchain technologies. The initiative was joined by financial giants Vanguard, Citigroup, American Century Investments, and Northern Trust.