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SWIFT’s GPI Counters Ripple’s Emergence in the Global Money Remittance Space

The Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) still dominates the industry with its innovative strategies. A recent report claims that SWIFT global payments innovation (GPI) supported over 50% of messaging traffic in the interbank network in 2018. Thus, the firm is not ready to give up its hold to XRP‘s creator Ripple in the remittance industry.

Navin Gupta, the managing director of Ripple in South Asia and MENA, gave a factual assertion. In his claim, he stated that people are now drifting their interest from high street banking to networking. As we published earlier, Ripple added 13 new institutions to take its customer tally to over 200.

Despite the 200 customers that Ripple attracted, SWIFT continues to report an adoption surge. In 2018 alone, the global remittance company saw a shift from 15% to about 56% representing a 270% year-in-year-out growth. Therefore, SWIFT is still considered as Ripple’s major competitor. In total, at least $40trn was transferred over the SWIFT service in 2018.

RIPPLE vs. SWIFT

At present, SWIFT remains the major means of large and small transfers across borders in countries where it is legal. However, with several developments of cryptocurrencies, the fintech company has encountered some limitations and new competitors. Ripple has managed to satisfy users’ primary demand from banks by using InterLedger Protocol (ILP).

Nonetheless, SWIFT GPI still poses a major threat to the blockchain technology. Also, the remittance company is also integrating with other companies in an attempt to remain competitive. As we announced in January, SWIFT integrated with R3 in an attempt to improve its network’s service. The integration enables enterprise blockchain software firm R3 to link to GPI (Global Payments Innovation) payments directly from their platform.

As the service continued to thrive in 2018, analysts said that it was triggered by fierce competition from blockchain technology. According to SWIFT, the GPI scheme came to improve end-to-end delivery with full tracking and transparency of network messages.

What’s Next?

SWIFT has committed to moving all of its almost 10,000 member banks to GPI by 2020. It will also use the scheme as a building block to release fresh new services. The new services scheduled for release include interfaces to third-party networks and links to domestic payment schemes.

Also, the remittance company plans to release a suite of APIs for post-payment reconciliation and bank-to-bank interaction. Earlier, we published that the Ripple CEO believed that they are taking over SWIFT on a daily basis. However, the recent GPI report suggests that the remittance company is not going down without a fight.

Commenting on the scheduled releases, the SWIFT CEO, Gottfried Leibbrandt, said:

“We can now move quickly to realize our ambition of ensuring ubiquitous real-time – even instant – cross-border payments right around the world.”

Leibbrandt believes that the latest developments and positive reports will enable the company to maintain most of its customers. He added:

“By incorporating APIs, trialing distributed ledger technology and exploring new technologies such as predictive analytics, we will continue to deliver new functionalities and applications at pace – ensuring that the cross-border payments experience rapidly becomes as seamless as domestic payments.”

SWIFT’s GPI Counters Ripple’s Emergence in the Global Money Remittance Space