Six leading Swiss corporates with international operations - including ABB, Nestle, Roche, SBB, Swiss Re and Wurth – have issued an open letter, stating their support for the Swift global payments innovation (gpi) and encouraging banks worldwide to use the service in order to improve cross-border payments.

These corporates state in their letter that Swift gpi addresses the pain points they currently experience when making cross-border payments: corporate treasurers and finance managers have little visibility of what happens to their cross-border payment instructions, not knowing when payments have been credited or what fees have been deducted. Equally, they do not know when or why a payment has been rejected and the investigation can be time-consuming and costly. It is also not always clear which party should initiate an investigation. This can cause problems with suppliers or end-customers as well as increasing financial risks resulting from payment delays or even fraudulent actions.

The group states that it “appreciates SWIFT gpi as it is targeting a long overdue, essential improvement of the customer needs for higher cross-border payment speed, transparency and end-to-end tracking.”

The letter continues: “With considerable industry support across the globe and an increasing number of leading transaction banks committed to the service, we are convinced that SWIFT gpi represents a major improvement in cross-border payments. The increasing number of banks going live on this service addresses the demands of corporate treasurers. Hence, banks cannot afford to not join the initiative and go live as soon as possible. Our expectation is that all of our cross-border payments will be end-to-end Swift gpi payments in the future.”

“We hear the same ‘call for action’ from corporates around the world. They want to know as fast as possible when a payment has been delivered to the end beneficiary. If there is an issue along the way, they would like to have more efficient ways of investigating exceptions,” said Marc Delbaere, Head of Corporates and Supply Chain at Swift.

In the context of Swift connected corporates, Delbaere added: “And of course large multi-banked corporates, used to multi-banking approaches on Swift, want a common experience across banks. We are now working very closely with the banks to bring these capabilities to market for the benefit of the corporates community.”

Swift gpi is the new standard for cross-border payments, and combines real-time payments tracking with the certainty of same-day settlement. Since it became available in January 2017, 20 global transaction banks have begun actively using or implementing the SWIFT gpi service, with another 50 in the implementation pipeline.

“Already today, with so many banks supporting Swift gpi, corporates are getting an enhanced experience directly from their banks, in over 85 country corridors. With its open membership model, we welcome more banks to join Swift gpi and respond to the needs of their clients, as expressed by global corporates around the world”, said Wim Raymaekers, head of Banking Markets and Swift gpi at Swift. - TradeArabia News Service