Swift Surpasses G20 Cross-Border Payments Speed Target by 15%

By 2027, the G20 wants 75% of international payments processed within an hour.

Global messaging service Swift said its network is meeting that target, and then some, according to a Thursday (Oct. 17) press release. Ninety percent of the cross-border payments made on its network reached their destination bank within an hour.

“Swift’s data shows that the speed of processing transactions to all but two of the top 40 countries on its network — by volume of payments received — continues to be above the G20’s target of one-hour end-to-end processing for 75% of international payments by 2027, while international payments to six regions are settling in the customer’s account more quickly than they were a year ago,” the release said.

However, Swift’s newest data underscored the need for the payments sector and regulators to deal with factors that lead to delays in cross-border payments, according to the release. The data showed a variation between processing speeds “at the domestic stage of a transaction” in the same 40 countries, with 43% of cross-border payments over Swift reaching the end customer within an hour.

“We’re committed to continuing to collaborate with our community to create a fast, trusted and secure end-to-end cross-border payments experience through standardization efforts, including supporting the industry transition to the ISO 20022 global standard,” Swift Chief Business Officer Thierry Chilosi said in the release. “But to really push on as a community and to achieve the G20’s goals, we all — the industry and global policymakers — need to focus our efforts firmly on the domestic beneficiary leg of transactions so that an enhanced experience can be enjoyed by every customer.

In addition, Swift’s data showed that wholesale cross-border payments made over its network to six regions are settling in customer accounts faster than a year ago, with 92% of payments to the Eurozone settling within an hour (up 3%), 88% of payments to the Middle East (up 1.8%) and 87% of payments to Africa (an increase of 1.5%), per the release.

Meanwhile, Tanja Haase, global product lead of payment experience at Swift, told PYMNTS this month about the challenges of properly managing cross-border payments.

Roughly 70% of consumers and small businesses have shown they would not go back to a provider that applied hidden fees or could not tell them the exact amount that would be credited to the end beneficiaries, she said. The challenge facing financial institutions is offering upfront predictability on cross-border payments.