Swift, the global financial messaging network, announced that it will begin live trials of digital asset and currency transactions with banks in North America, Europe, and Asia starting in 2025. This marks a significant move for Swift, as it transitions from blockchain experimentation in testing environments to real-world applications for digital asset settlements.
First Real-World Digital Asset Trials for Swift
Swift, which connects over 11,500 financial institutions globally, will pilot a system that enables transactions across both digital and traditional currencies. This will be the first time Swift’s infrastructure facilitates digital asset transactions in live settings. The trials will involve linking digital and fiat currency platforms through Swift’s network, allowing banks to seamlessly transact across borders using their existing Swift connections. The initiative follows a series of successful experiments in collaboration with web3 services firm Chainlink, which demonstrated that Swift could bridge public and private blockchain networks through a single point of access. These trials also highlighted Swift’s potential to support tokenized assets and central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), with over 130 countries exploring the development of digital currencies.Addressing Fragmentation in the Digital Asset Ecosystem
One of the key challenges that Swift aims to address through these trials is the fragmentation of digital asset platforms. Without interconnectivity between platforms, widespread adoption of digital currencies could remain limited. Swift’s goal is to offer global financial institutions the ability to transact across multiple asset types, using the same secure infrastructure they rely on today for traditional transactions. “With our vast global reach, we are uniquely positioned to bridge both emerging and established forms of value,” said Tom Zschach, Swift’s Chief Innovation Officer. The trials will demonstrate how financial institutions can use Swift’s platform to settle transactions involving both digital assets and traditional currencies, providing a unified system for global payments. Source: The Block
Read the full article on
.