In brief
- SWIFT is partnering with Consensys and 30 major financial institutions including Bank of America, Citi, and JP Morgan to develop a blockchain-based prototype for real-time cross-border payments.
- The prototype will use a secure ledger with smart contracts to record and validate transactions.
- It’s still unclear whether it will be built on Ethereum mainnet or the Layer-2 network Linea.
The SWIFT network, which connects more than 11,500 financial institutions globally, is working with Ethereum software giant Consensys and 30 different firms to build a prototype for “real-time 24/7 cross border payments.”
The other firms include Bank of America, Citi, Deutsche Bank, JP Morgan Chase, and Wells Fargo.
“It is envisaged that the ledger—a secure, real-time log of transactions between financial institutions—will record, sequence and validate transactions and enforce rules through smart contracts,” the organization said in a press release.
Neither Consensys nor Swift said whether the prototype is being built on Ethereum mainnet or Layer-2 network Linea—which Consensys incubated. Swift did not respond to a request for comment from Decrypt. Consensys said that it would not share more details at this time.
Consensys is one of 22 investors in an editorially independent Decrypt.
“Swift’s plans to extend its network with blockchain infrastructure is a defining moment for both traditional and decentralized finance,” the company wrote in a blog post. “It reflects a convergence, not a clash.”
The core functionality of SWIFT’s core function is its messaging system, not payment rails. It doesn’t hold customer funds, clear, or settle payments. But the network offers the means by which banks, brokerages, and other financial institutions communicate who is moving money, in what quantities and currency, and the recipients.
The SWIFT network connects 11,500 institutions across more than 200 countries and territories. In 2022, the SWIFT messages corresponded to a daily “net-net” value of around $7.5 trillion, according to a report from Citi.
If the prototype did eventually lead to even a small fraction of the Swift network’s volume being processed onchain, it could be a massive boon. The SWIFT network processes roughly 53 million financial messages, or FINs, per day.
By comparison, the Ethereum mainnet processed 1.4 million transactions yesterday, according to Etherscan. If just 6% of the SWIFT network’s volume were to be processed on Ethereum it would double the network’s volume would double. .
The effect would be more dramatic on Linea, which debutlaunched its mainnet in 2023 and handled 145,000 transactions on Sundayyesterday, according to LineaScan. Using Sunday’s yesterday’s data, it would only take 0.51% of SWIFT’s volume to double the throughput on Linea.
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