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SWIFT grows financial messaging traffic by 11 per cent

24 Jan 2019, 12:47 pm
Financial Nigeria
SWIFT grows financial messaging traffic by 11 per cent

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The volume of annual messages in 2018 rose to 7.8 billion, up 11.3 per cent from the previous year. The traffic growth was driven by the mass adoption of SWIFT's gpi.  


Latest figures on financial messaging traffic provided by SWIFT, the leading provider of secure financial messaging services, show that volume of annual messages in 2018 rose to 7.8 billion, up 11.3 per cent from the previous year. According to the Belgium-headquartered organisation, the traffic growth was driven by the mass adoption of SWIFT's global payments innovation (gpi).  

In a statement released on Wednesday by SWIFT, the gpi now accounts for over half (55%) of cross-border payment instructions carried on the network, only two years since its launch. The gpi was launched to enhance correspondent banking and usher in a new standard in cross-border payments.

In 2018, SWIFT said its gpi service, which is now supported by hundreds of banks, including more than 50 of the world’s top banks, continued to radically transform correspondent banking and is now used to send over $300 billion in payments every day. With the gpi service, payments are typically made within minutes or even seconds, and over 50 per cent of SWIFT gpi payments credited to end beneficiaries within 30 minutes.

“With gpi payments leaving Africa being credited to the end beneficiary faster than ever, African banks and their corporate customers are already reaping the benefits of the SWIFT gpi service,” said Denis Kruger, head of Sub-Sahara Africa at SWIFT. “We expect many more African banks to go live this year, bolstering their competitiveness in the ever-evolving financial services landscape.”

The financial messaging services provider said growth in SWIFT’s payments traffic was strong in all regions as well as in domestic and cross-border segments. The network also recorded a new peak traffic day in 2018, when it processed 35.22 million FIN messages on 31 May. The latest figures also show an average of 31.31 million messages a day last year. Over the last five years, messaging traffic has jumped by 56 per cent, according to SWIFT.

Gottfried Leibbrandt, CEO of SWIFT, said: “Our traffic increase is remarkable, and I’m delighted we’ve hit an all-time high of 35 million messages in a single day. This is not only indicative of the wider growth in the global economy, but also the financial services industry’s continued trust in SWIFT."

The organisation also reiterated its commitment to ensuring high security. It said it achieved this together with continued reliability by rolling out new capabilities such as the Payment Controls Service and instant payment solutions in Australia and Europe.

“I’m confident that in 2019, SWIFT will continue to accelerate this momentum across its payments, securities and financial crime compliance areas,” said Yawar Shah, SWIFT’s Chairman.


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