Swift launches blockchain ledger to enable round-the-clock global payments

The project takes only nine months from announcement to launch. The first application scenario deliberately chose to be low-key and pragmatic: it did not involve public crypto transactions, did not involve stablecoin speculation, and was only used for round-the-clock inter-agency bank funds transfers. This kind of restraint just reflects its importance.

Key Points

17 banks including Citigroup, HSBC, UBS, and Wells Fargo participated in the real-time trading pilot.
SWIFT designed and delivered the ledger system in nine months, with more than 40 participating institutions.
SWIFT\'s payment track handles an amount of money equivalent to the total global GDP every two to three days.
The number of global cryptocurrency holders has reached 741 million, an increase of 12.4% in one year.

What exactly is tokenized deposit

Tokenized deposit refers to the presentation of ordinary bank deposits in the form of digital tokens on the blockchain. Funds are always within the regulated banking system. Your euros or dollars remain on the bank\'s balance sheet and enjoy all the usual protections, but the certificate of ownership of the funds becomes a token that can be transferred instantly between institutions 24/7 and can be programmed to set conditions. It can be understood as replacing traditional bank funds with a new and faster carrier.

This is the core issue that SWIFT is trying to solve. Traditional cross-border payments are still limited by working hours, daily deadlines and agent banking chains-when the sending bank and the receiving bank do not have a direct business relationship, payment instructions need to be passed through an intermediary. Each change of hands adds delays, costs and liquidity, which means that large amounts of money are idle in accounts around the world just to keep the payment system running.

SWIFT\'s new shared ledger allows banks to transfer tokenized deposits between days and nights, while final settlement is still done through existing regulated systems.

The pilot team covers a truly global scope: Bank of New York Mellon, Citibank, HSBC, Standard Chartered Bank, UBS, BNP Paribas, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, DBS Bank, Overseas Chinese Bank, Wells Fargo, Bank of Australia, Bank of New Zealand, Lloyd\'s Bank, United Overseas American Bank, First Bank of Abu Dhabi, Masley Bank, First National Bank of South Africa, Itau Union Bank. Carl Slabicki of Bank of New York Mellon called the work \"an important step in understanding how these capabilities evolve over time.\" Citibank\'s Debopama Sen more directly elaborated on product goals, calling the ledger an \"important step towards 24/7 payments and liquidity management.\"

Why is SWIFT acting now

The demand side of the banking system has undergone fundamental changes. According to Crypto.com\'s crypto market report, by the end of 2025, the number of global cryptocurrency holders has reached 741 million, an increase of 12.4% in one year. The company\'s 2026 outlook predicts that this number may reach 800 million to 900 million this year. This means that approximately one in ten people around the world already owns digital assets, and customer groups increasingly expect money to flow like everything else on the Internet: instantly, 24 hours a day, and by 3 a.m. on Sunday if needed.

Banks \'witnessing stablecoins proves that this demand is real. DefiLlama data shows that the total market value of stablecoins has grown from approximately US$120 billion at the end of 2023 to approximately US$310 billion today. These dollar-linked tokens settle trillions of dollars in transactions every year outside bank working hours. Every such transaction is a missed transaction by traditional payment systems because they are too slow or too closed.

SWIFT\'s ledgers are a response to an existing system: integrating the features that people really expect from the cryptocurrency track-24/7 availability, instant transfer, programmability-into a bank-issued, compliant, bank-issued system where funds already exist.

For its own part, SWIFT is facing a slow but inevitable erosion of its core position. The cooperative organization connects more than 200 markets and handles an amount equivalent to global GDP every two to three days, but its core product is always messaging between banks rather than settlement. If funds start to flow through tracks that SWIFT cannot reach, their status will be gradually eroded with each transaction. While the map is being redrawn, adding a layer of blockchain orchestration will keep SWIFT at the center of the map.

Who are SWIFT\'s actual competitors?

The most direct competition comes from the stablecoin ecosystem. Tether and Circle already offer a service that SWIFT is still piloting: instant, round-the-clock cross-border dollar transfers. Their disadvantages are exactly where SWIFT\'s strengths lie-stablecoins exist outside bank balance sheets, create regulatory friction for institutional treasurers, and tokenized deposits are bank funds from the first block. If the pilot is successfully rolled out, companies will be able to achieve speeds similar to stablecoins without leaving existing banking relationships, which eliminates a big reason to hold open stablecoins for core payment streams.

The second competitive direction is the blockchain network built by banks themselves and taking the lead. JPMorgan\'s Kinexys processes billions of dollars in tokenized value settlements for customers every day, and joint projects such as Party backed by DBS Bank, JPMorgan Chase and Standard Chartered Bank are conducting real-time interbank settlements in Asia. These are systems built around SWIFT by its own members. SWIFT\'s ledger is designed to show that a neutral shared layer connecting all participants is better than a fragmented solution made of a proprietary network that connects only a few participants.

The third contender is a crypto-native settlement participant, the most eye-catching being Ripple, which spent a decade promoting blockchain-based cross-border payment solutions to banks and using XRP as a bridge asset. SWIFT\'s actions confirm the concepts pioneered by those companies, while SWIFT has unparalleled network advantages when competing for the same payment channel: more than 11,000 connected institutions and a trust base built up over decades.

What factors may lead to project stagnation

Opposition first focuses on the word \"pilot\". Seventeen banks tested real-time transactions, which is far from the same concept as the daily business volume handled by thousands of banks. The history of enterprise blockchain is full of successful pilots but failed to scale up. IBM and Maersk\'s TradeLens and we.trade alliances failed after years of promising trials because letting competitors share infrastructure was a governance issue, not a technical issue.

Fragmentation of liquidity is a more hidden risk. Tokenized deposits from one bank cannot be automatically exchanged with tokens from another bank because each token carries the credit risk of its issuer. If there is no mechanism for Bank A\'s tokens to be used like Bank B\'s tokens, then the system may eventually recreate the agent bank friction it was meant to eliminate, but replaced with a newer orbital form.

Regulatory boundaries are also unclear. The round-the-clock circulation of token deposits raises questions about deposit insurance, reserve processing, and bank runs that no longer need to wait until Monday morning to occur. Regulators have not yet given complete answers to any of these questions.

Technical reality suggests that the pilot may be successful within its own scope, but still leaves a larger question open: whether banks will adopt shared blockchain tracks on a large scale or limit technology to specific niche channels. The significance of the July 9 launch is more specific but indeed important. The debate over whether blockchain should enter the core system of global banks has ended. The focus of the competition now is whose plan can win.