Swift to Launch Digital Asset Trials in 2025

Messaging utility Swift says financial institutions will have the ability to use its platform to conduct pilot transactions for the settlement of digital assets and currencies in 2025, with the aim of demonstrating how institutions can transact interchangeably across both existing and emerging asset and currency types using their current Swift connection.

The utility says that recent trials have demonstrated its capacity to connect public and private blockchains, interlink central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) on a global scale, and integrate multiple digital asset and currency networks. “Now we’re moving beyond experimentation,” it states. “Next year we’ll be collaborating with our community to pilot an advanced version of our infrastructure that is capable of orchestrating digital asset and currency transactions across networks for the first time.”

In the lead-up to the trials, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority and Banque de France are leveraging Swift’s capabilities in ongoing experiments for FX use cases, as part of the European Central Bank’s initiative to explore new technologies for wholesale payments. Swift is also investigating how its interlinking capabilities could integrate emerging bank-led networks, such as the US Regulated Settlement Network, with traditional financial systems. Swift has also recently been named as a participant in Project Agora, a Bank for International Settlements-led project exploring the integration of tokenised commercial bank deposits and tokenised wholesale CBDCs on a unified platform.

“For digital assets and currencies to succeed on a global scale, it’s critical that they can seamlessly coexist with traditional forms of money,” says Tom Zschach, chief innovation officer at Swift. “With our vast global reach, we are uniquely positioned to bridge both emerging and established forms of value, and we’re now focused on demonstrating this in real-world, mainstream applications.

“As new forms of value emerge, our intention is to continue offering our community the ability to seamlessly make and track transactions of all kinds of assets – using the same secure and resilient infrastructure that is integral to their operations today,” he adds.