Swift launches Go for cheaper international payments

Swift has launched Swift Go: a new service that enables small businesses and consumers to send fast, highly secure, and competitively priced low-value, cross-border payments anywhere in the world, direct from their bank accounts. Seven global banks, which collectively handle 33 million low-value cross-border payments per year, are now live with the service.

The new service enables financial institutions to offer a seamless payments experience for low-value transactions often initiated by small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to pay suppliers overseas and by consumers sending money to friends and family internationally. Using tighter service level agreements between institutions and pre-validation of data, Swift Go enables banks to provide their end customers with a fast and predictable payments experience with upfront visibility on processing times and costs.

Stephen Gilderdale, chief product officer, at Swift says: “Swift Go is a further step towards achieving our vision of enabling anybody, anywhere, to send money instantly and securely around the world. The new service is a direct response to the needs of small businesses and consumers for fast, easy, predictable, secure and competitively priced cross-border payments. Our new service will allow banks to compete effectively in one of the fastest-growing segments of the payments market, delivering a seamless experience for their customers.”

Raouf Soussi, head of enterprise payments strategy of client solutions, BBVA says: “BBVA is very excited to be one of the first banks to sign up to SWIFT Go and we recognise the potential of this solution to revolutionise the way SMEs and consumers move money around the world. We have listened closely to our customers and we know how much they value a secure service that ensures payments reach their destination quickly and seamlessly.”

Isabel Schmidt, head of direct clearing and asset account services products, Bank of New York Mellon says: “It’s no secret that for many years consumers and small businesses have been running into varying pain points when transacting international payments. These challenges have included opaque costs and a lack of certainty on how quickly funds are delivered to the final beneficiary. This is why BNY Mellon is pleased to be the first US bank to go live with SWIFT Go, a new service that overcomes all of these challenges and assists financial institutions in delivering competitive, seamless, fast and predictable payments experience to their customers.”

Swift Go is being used by the following banks globally: BBVA; Bank of New York Mellon; DNB; MYBank; Sberbank; Société Générale, and UniCredit.