Swift to Launch Live Trials of Digital Asset Transactions

Starting next year, Swift announced that banks in North America, Europe, and Asia will begin live trials of digital asset and currency transactions over its global messaging network, serving more than 11,500 financial institutions.

Advancing Beyond Experiments

Swift has previously experimented with blockchain transactions in testing environments. However, next year’s trials will pilot an advanced version of its infrastructure capable of orchestrating real-world digital asset and currency transactions across networks for the first time. This information was shared in a statement from the firm on Thursday.

Leveraging Existing Networks

The live trials will utilize Swift’s existing global network and interlink various digital and traditional currency platforms, providing a unified system for banks to transact across borders with digital and fiat currencies.

Demonstrating Interconnectivity

The trials aim to showcase how financial institutions can interchangeably transact across both existing and emerging asset and currency types using their current Swift connection. The firm stated, “Global financial institutions will have the ability to use Swift’s global platform to conduct pilot transactions for the settlement of digital assets and currencies.”

Transitioning to Reality

This announcement follows a series of recent experiments by Swift, which partnered with web3 services firm Chainlink to connect its network to the Ethereum Sepolia test network. These experiments showed that Swift could provide a single access point to multiple public and private blockchain networks, which could support institutions in creating tokenized assets and developing central bank digital currencies — a topic currently being explored by 134 countries.

Bridging New and Traditional Values

“For digital assets and currencies to succeed globally, they must seamlessly coexist with traditional forms of money,” said Swift Chief Innovation Officer Tom Zschach. “With our vast global reach, we are uniquely positioned to bridge both emerging and established forms of value. Our focus now is on demonstrating this in real-world, mainstream applications.”

Addressing Connectivity Challenges

A key goal of the trials is to tackle the issue of disconnected digital platforms that could impede the widespread adoption of new forms of value. Swift noted, “While the scale is impressive, without interconnectivity between platforms, global adoption is set to remain fragmented.”

Zschach added, “As new forms of value emerge, our intention is to continue offering our community the ability to seamlessly make and track transactions of all asset types — using the secure and resilient infrastructure integral to their operations today.”