SWIFT has conducted two separate trials to prove that central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) and tokenised assets can move seamlessly on existing financial infrastructure, a major milestone towards enabling their smooth integration into the international financial ecosystem. SWIFT claims that the findings solve the significant challenge of interoperability in cross-border transactions by bridging between different DLT networks and existing payment systems, allowing digital currencies and assets to flow smoothly alongside, and interact with, their traditional counterparts. This means that, as CBDCs and tokens develop, they can be rapidly deployed at scale to facilitate trade and investment between more than 200 countries and territories around the world.
In collaboration with Capgemini, SWIFT achieved CBDC-to-CBDC transactions between different DLT networks based on popular Quorum and Corda technologies, as well as fiat-to-CBDC flows between these networks and a real-time gross settlement system. The success showed that the blockchain networks could be interlinked for cross-border payments through a single gateway, and that SWIFT’s new transaction management capabilities could orchestrate all inter-network communication. Fourteen central and commercial banks, including Banque de France, the Deutsche Bundesbank, HSBC, Intesa Sanpaolo, NatWest, SMBC, Standard Chartered, UBS and Wells Fargo, are now collaborating in a testing environment to accelerate the path to full scale deployment.