The Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (Swift) on Tuesday revealed a partnership with fintech company Symbiont to provide more accurate data through blockchain technology for financial companies.
Companies participating in the initiative include Vanguard, Citigroup, American Century Investments and Northern Trust.
According to the announcement, the pilot project “could help providers distribute data in real time to global custody customers.” Through Assembly, Symbiont’s proprietary technology platform, smart contracts will be used to “build a network effect that leverages 11,000+ institutions connected to Swift globally.”
In 2017, Symbian partnered with Vanguard to improve the distribution of price index data via blockchain, consuming data from a $1.3 trillion fund at the time.
“By bringing together Symbian’s assembly and smart contracts with Swift’s extensive network, we are able to automatically reconcile data from multiple sources of corporate action events,” said Tom Zaschack, Swift’s Chief Innovation Officer. Compare information shared between participants and flag discrepancies, contradictions or discrepancies in the custodian.
Due to the rise of the Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC), the company is making efforts to maintain its relevance in the international economic system. In 2017, Interbank Co-operative introduced its global payments’ innovation, GPI, seeking to enhance payment tracking and fee transparency, allowing customers to send cross-border payments 24 hours per day.
In February, the European Commission decided to deactivate the SWIFT network for several Russian banks due to the war in Ukraine. In a recent panel session at the Blockchain Central Davos conference, Mastercard CEO Michael Miback said he doesn’t expect SWIFT to be possible in five years. Founded in 1973, SWIFT handles over five billion financial messages a year and has a presence in 200 countries.
