Swift Integrates Blockchain Ledger to Drive Scalable Cross-Border Payments Worldwide

Highlights:

• Swift integrates a blockchain ledger as part of its efforts to drive a modernized financial infrastructure.
• 30 financial institutions across 16 countries will work on the ledger project.
• Consensys will design the first conceptual prototype of Swift’s newly announced ledger.

At Sibos 2025, Swift unveiled plans to launch its blockchain-based ledger, aimed at modernizing financial infrastructure and validating the role of blockchains and oracle networks in the future of money. The company announced the move in a press release on September 29, eliciting widespread reactions.

According to the publication, 30 leading financial institutions are designing the ledger. It added that the innovation targets an initial real-time use case and 24/7 cross-border payments. Notably, Consensys will develop the project’s first conceptual prototype. The ledger is an extension of Swift’s two-year digital asset trials. It will run alongside the company’s existing fiat payment rails.

Describing the ledger functionalities, Swift noted that it would ensure a secure, always-on record of transactions, with built-in sequencing and real-time payments validation. The company also noted that smart contracts would enforce transaction rules. Overall, the ledger supports high interpretability, enabling it to work seamlessly with traditional and new financial networks.

Javier Pérez-Tasso, Swift’s Chief Executive Officer, stated:

“Through this initial ledger concept, we are paving the way for financial institutions to take the payments experience to the next level with Swift’s proven and trusted platform at the centre of the industry’s digital transformation.”

It’s confirmed: #SWIFT has announced they will add a blockchain-based shared ledger (permissionless). The prototype will be developed by @Consensys @swiftcommunity https://t.co/6tPra7hFAP pic.twitter.com/Mi1dk25IVu

— gaudenzio.eth (@gaudenzio_eth) September 29, 2025

Banks from Different Countries Join the Ledger Design

Swift is collaborating with firms from 16 countries on the design. Some of these institutions include Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, HSBC, Citi, Standard Chartered, Wells Fargo, MUFG, Deutsche Bank, Santander, BNP Paribas, BNY, ANZ, and DBS.

Others include banks from Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and the United States. Meanwhile, many banks shared a similar view on their partnership with Swift, adding that collaboration remains significant as no single institution can achieve the large-scale transformation.

Bruno Mallado, the Global Head of Payments and Receivables at BNP Paribas, stated:

“By partnering in this initiative, we are helping our clients and banking partners design a promising trajectory towards multi-currency atomic settlements using blockchain networks.”

Chainlink Reacts as Swift Integrates Blockchain Ledger

In a separate press release, Chainlink congratulated Swift, its long-term partner, on its milestone. For over seven years, Chainlink and Swift have been working to link financial institutions to blockchain networks. Chainlink, the crypto industry standard oracle platform, provides connectivity to public and private blockchains, allowing banks to experiment with tokenization and digital assets in real-world settings.

Over the years, Swift and Chainlink’s collaboration has yielded significant results, including enabling financial firms to connect to any blockchain while still using Swift infrastructure. The partnership also saw UBS, a leading banking firm, adopt Swift’s messages in handling subscriptions and redemptions from tokenized funds.

As a landmark moment for the global financial system and blockchain industry alike, Swift announced at Sibos 2025 it is launching a new blockchain-based ledger: https://t.co/lHUHsjoxJE

We congratulate our partner Swift and the broader Swift community on adopting blockchains and… pic.twitter.com/GSqGSYrwGk

— Chainlink (@chainlink) September 29, 2025

Additionally, the collaboration birthed a corporate action initiative with Euroclear and leading firms like UBS, Franklin Templeton, CACEIS, and Sygnum Bank. Chainlink and Swift’s partnership dates back to Sibos 2016 in Geneva, when Sergey Nazarov, Chainlink’s co-founder, proposed the idea of integrating smart contracts with Swift’s trusted rails.

While Blockchain was still in its experimental phase, Nazarov remained resilient and achieved significant milestones from the collaboration. In 2019, Chainlink launched in production as one of the central pieces of Decentralized Finance (DeFi) infrastructure, while Swift continued to deepen its blockchain research. By 2021, Swift and Chainlink’s leaders attended events hosted by each other, cementing their collaboration and identifying means of improvement. In 2022, the partnership expanded to focus on Chanlink’s Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol (CCIP).