Half of cross-border transactions on the Swift network reach recipient banks within 40 seconds. Swift said domestic processing delays remain a key hurdle to faster payments. Thierry Chilosi said, "The challenge now is to tackle the inconsistency that we see in the last mile in markets around the world."
Half of cross-border transactions on the Swift network reach recipient banks within 40 seconds, but delays in domestic processing remain a key hurdle to faster payments.
Half of cross-border transactions routed through the Swift network reach recipient banks within 40 seconds, but delays in crediting funds to beneficiaries' accounts remain a key hurdle in improving customer experience, according to a new report by Swift.
The report, Spotlight on Speed, found that while interbank processing of international payments has become significantly faster, the final leg of the transaction -- from the receiving bank to the beneficiary's account -- accounts for 80 per cent of the average transaction journey time.
The findings, based on an analysis of 40 receiving markets, showed that in a third of the markets, the median time taken to process payments between the receiving institution and the beneficiary's account was around an hour. Other markets showed considerable variation, with faster payments coexisting alongside significantly slower transactions.
Overall, 50 per cent of transactions on the Swift network now reach recipient institutions within 40 seconds, while 75 per cent do so within 10 minutes. This puts the industry ahead of the G20 target of completing cross-border payments within one hour end-to-end by 2027.
Swift said the focus now needs to shift towards addressing domestic processing bottlenecks, which prevent customers from experiencing the benefits of faster international payment systems.
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The report recommended greater adoption of 'one-leg-out' arrangements, under which domestic instant payment systems handle the in-country leg of international transactions. It also called for end-to-end tracking across domestic payment systems to improve speed and transparency.
"Cross-border processing speeds are consistently fast, but if we're to deliver the experience that customers expect then the challenge now is to tackle the inconsistency that we see in the last mile in markets around the world," said Thierry Chilosi, chief business officer, Swift.
Payments routed under Swift's retail payments framework have already demonstrated faster processing across several corridors. These include transfers from Turkey to Spain in 15 seconds, Australia to India in 37 seconds, and Brazil to the US in a minute.
Since June, banks have been using the framework across some of the busiest international payment corridors, including those serving five of the largest remittance-receiving markets.
Separately, Swift said 19 early-adopter financial institutions are expected to use its blockchain ledger for tokenised deposit transactions by the end of 2026, across five major currencies. The network connects more than 12,500 institutions across over 200 markets.