🎉 UK🇬🇧: Banks expand Swift cross-border payments for retail customers

🎉 UK🇬🇧: Banks expand Swift cross-border payments for retail customers

UK banks have begun expanding access to Swift cross-border payments for retail customers, marking a significant step for the financial messaging network, which has historically been used primarily for B2B transactions.

💡 At present, 25 UK banks have adopted the upgrade. At launch, customers of Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds, and NatWest gained the ability to receive funds from Australia🇦🇺, China🇨🇳, India🇮🇳, and Turkey🇹🇷, as well as send money to Australia.

💡 How does it work? In addition to Swift's infrastructure, the service leverages the domestic payment systems of participating countries, such as UPI (India) and NPP (Australia), enabling faster cross-border transfers.

💡 Speed: In most cases, funds are credited within minutes or even instantly when the local banking system supports real-time payments.

💡 Key benefits: Customers will be able to track their payments end-to-end, from initiation to receipt. In addition, fees and foreign exchange costs will remain fully transparent throughout the transaction, with no unexpected charges or deductions as the funds move through participating financial institutions.

💡 Expansion: The service is expected to continue expanding as more banks and additional domestic payment systems join the network, potentially increasing competition with international money transfer fintechs and neobanks such as Wise, Revolut, and Remitly.

💡 Next steps: Expanding the service into the United States🇺🇸 is one of the project's next objectives. Meanwhile, Bank of America is developing its own high-volume, low-cost cross-border payment solution for businesses and financial institutions, with a launch expected by the end of this quarter. The service will operate through Swift or CashPro, the bank's proprietary platform, and is designed for use cases including payments to temporary workers, marketplace sellers, and P2P transfers.

💡 Context: According to the World Bank data, the global person-to-person cross-border transference market exceeded USD 600 billion in 2024, with the UK accounting for approximately USD 12 billion of that total.

#news #Europe #USA #P2P

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