SWIFT, a global payments network has denied a rumour that is been circulated in the cyberspace that the platform plans to integrate with Ripple’s suite like rippleNet or XRapid for cross-border payments.
The rumour broke out when SWIFT announced that its upgrading its platform. SWIFT started updating its protocol standards this month and has also urged its clients to upgrade to the company’s new global payments platform SWIFT gpi. News about the upgrade led to widely circulated rumors that SWIFT gpi would make RippleNet and the XRP-powered payment solution xRapid directly available to banks on the SWIFT network.
In a recent interview, the spokesperson of SWIFT said,
“I’m not sure where those rumors are coming from but the upcoming standards release … is entirely unrelated to RippleNet.
Its primary purpose is to ensure all payments include a tracking reference (UETR, Unique End-to-end Transaction Reference) which will allow banks to track their gpi payments end-to-end in real time.”
The SWIFT upgrade is an add-on to its GPI system. GPI stands for global payments innovation, and it was launched in January 2017 to speed up the notoriously slow cross-border payment network, which has been the world standard since the 1970s. Harry Newman, SWIFT head of banking, told the Financial Times in June: “It is no secret that correspondent banking is a 1998 model and we are busy addressing that, bringing it to a 2018 model.” This system is already used by a large proportion of banks on the network.
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