Swift has moved its blockchain-based shared ledger from development into an initial live pilot, with 17 banks across six continents testing cross-border payments using tokenized deposits – a step toward round-the-clock value transfer that has long been a goal of traditional financial infrastructure.
The announcement , made Thursday from Brussels, marks the first production-ready use of Swift's blockchain ledger following a nine-month build with input from financial institutions globally.
The participating banks include DBS, UOB, OCBC, Standard Chartered, BNP Paribas, MUFG Bank, HSBC, UBS, BNY, Citi, and Wells Fargo, among others, according to the announcement.
"With our new ledger capability, we're extending the trust and stability of established finance into the frontiers of digital money," said Thierry Chilosi, Swift's chief business officer. "It allows tokenised value to move across borders with the velocity and flexibility modern commerce expects, while maintaining the same high levels of resiliency, security, and compliance global finance requires."
How it works
Swift's ledger sits alongside existing payment infrastructure, not replacing it. Banks can use it to move tokenized deposits – digital versions of commercial bank money issued by regulated institutions – outside normal banking hours, including overnight and on weekends. Final settlement still flows through existing payment rails.
The system targets liquidity management and customer experience for cross-border corporate flows. Swift said the ledger preserves the compliance and control frameworks banks already use – a key differentiator from stablecoin-based alternatives that some institutions have been reluctant to adopt for regulated flows.
Swift noted that 75% of payments on its existing network already reach beneficiary banks within 10 minutes, and often in seconds. The ledger layers always-on availability for tokenized value on top of that existing speed, without disrupting the settlement chain correspondent banks and regulators rely on.
The competitive backdrop
Swift's move comes as a range of players build infrastructure for faster, around-the-clock cross-border payments. Stablecoin issuers have marketed round-the-clock capability as a competitive advantage over traditional wires for years. Swift's position is that bank-issued tokenized deposits offer a compliance-ready alternative within existing regulatory frameworks, without the risks some institutions associate with non-bank stablecoins.
The broader institutional tokenization narrative has been expanding. Central banks are exploring wholesale CBDCs, commercial banks are piloting tokenized bonds and syndicated loans, and infrastructure providers are building settlement layers that tokenized assets will need to trade at scale. Swift's ledger is positioned as a connective layer – one that integrates with multiple blockchain networks rather than committing to a single distributed ledger.
The pilot is initial use, not full production deployment. Swift has not specified a timeline for expanding beyond the 17-bank group or a date for general availability. Whether it generates sufficient volume and institutional appetite to justify broader rollout will be the next signal to watch.
