Swift Pushes to Rewrite the Rules of Retail Cross-Border Payments
Swift is moving beyond its wholesale roots with a new scheme that could change how ordinary consumers send money abroad. The Brussels-based cooperative, best known for wiring trillions across global markets every day, said it is working with 30 banks to create a rulebook for retail transfers — a part of the business long plagued by hidden fees and unpredictable settlement times.
The plan calls for “full value” payments that arrive without surprise deductions, transparent pricing, and instant crediting of funds wherever domestic infrastructure allows. Banks would use the identical advanced tools that have transformed institutional transactions — such as real-time tracking, pre-validation of account details and richer ISO 20022 data — to make consumer transfers just as reliable.
“Swift has worked with its community over the past few years to significantly raise the bar on the cross-border payments experience,” said Thierry Chilosi, the company’s chief business officer. “And now, together with the industry, we are bringing those identical benefits to retail customers around the world. The new scheme will ensure that consumers and small businesses will experience quick and predictable international payments, whether sending money to family abroad or paying an overseas supplier.”
The initiative reflects years of pressure from regulators and the G20, which set targets for cheaper and quicker international payments by 2027. Those benchmarks include funds reaching end beneficiaries within an hour in three-quarters of cases, with full transparency on charges.
Swift has already hit part of that mark. Three-quarters of payments on its network now reach beneficiary banks within ten minutes, according to the company. But new data released this week shows that only about 20 percent of the total processing time comes from Swift’s own cross-border leg. The other 80 percent is consumed in the “last mile” — domestic clearing systems, regulatory checks, and local banking practices that can still sluggish transactions by hours or even days.
To close that gap, Swift is leaning on a roster of major banks spanning 17 countries, including JPMorgan, Citi, Bank of America, BNP Paribas, Deutsche Bank, Santander, Lloyds, ANZ, OCBC, Emirates NBD and Ecobank. Each will pilot the retail framework and agree to enforce common standards on fees, speed and transparency in their corridors.
For Swift, the move is also defensive. Fintech challengers and regional schemes such as India’s Unified Payments Interface have raised expectations among consumers accustomed to instant domestic transfers. New entrants including Wise and Revolut have lured customers with flat fees and quicker settlement, forcing incumbents to respond.
The cooperative is not a bank itself and does not move money, but rather provides the rails for messages between 11,000 financial institutions. It has rolled out innovations such as global payments innovation (gpi) in 2017, the Swift Go low-value service in 2021, and most recently Transaction Manager — a hub that keeps a “golden copy” of payment data to reduce errors. The retail rulebook is meant to tie those efforts together in a package ordinary consumers can feel.
Whether the scheme succeeds will depend on adoption. Participation is voluntary, and the last mile still lies beyond Swift’s direct control. But if the largegest global banks follow through, customers could finally view international transfers land in minutes, not days, and with no mystery deductions along the way.
