Three Central Banks Join SWIFT’s Beta Program for CBDC Interoperability

The banks communication network has made improvements in its transaction speed and is actively exploring technologies to integrate Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs). On September 13 SWIFT, the banking messaging platform announced that three central banks have joined its beta program aimed at ensuring compatibility between different CBDCs. Moreover SWIFT has entered a phase of experimental testing.

The Central Bank of Kazakhstan the Hong Kong Monetary Authority and an undisclosed third central bank have established connections with SWIFTs CBDC interface for experimentation purposes.

The initial stage of this phase began in March and involved over 18 entities such as the Royal Bank of Canada Deutsche Bundesbank and HSBC among others. Throughout this period than 5,000 transactions were successfully processed within a span of 12 weeks. It is expected that the number of participating organizations will soon exceed 30.

SWIFT has been actively involved in projects related to CBDCs including one with the New York Federal Reserve Bank focused on creating a regulatory governed wholesale CBDC network.

SWIFTs platform is widely used by over 11,500 organizations globally. While CBDCs may pose challenges to SWIFTs dominance in the industry they also serve as catalysts for innovation within the platform. This can be observed through the range of CBDC projects supported by the Bank, for International Settlements.
According to the report from SWIFT in August they announced that 89% of their transactions are successfully processed within one hour surpassing the G20s goal of achieving 75% one hour settlements by 2027. Additionally it was mentioned that 84% of transactions take place either directly or through an intermediary. However SWIFT also acknowledged that 60% of wholesale transactions are completed within an hour due to different factors, like regulatory constraints and limited operating hours.

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