SWIFT Attracts Jeers and Praise for Distributed Ledger Embrace
Will the blockchain replace SWIFT? No fringe concept, the question has long been openly asked by innovators in the blockchain industry as well as FinTech professionals due to the potential of the technology to replace financial intermediaries. As the "global backbone of the financial industry", this is notably one of the core functions that SWIFT today serves. Accordingly, the question of how SWIFT would respond to this potential threat gained new definition this week with the news that the financial messaging services provider is working to build its own distributed ledger....
Related News
A new report from SWIFT details the settlement network operator's plan to develop a distributed ledger application platform. The 20-page report, which was the result of research and development between SWIFT and professional services firm Accenture, includes new details on SWIFT’s proofs-of-concept focused on the technology. These include how it working on transaction settlement and identity management concepts that incorporate blockchain elements. Notably, the paper outlines SWIFT's intention to create "a distinctive [distributed ledger technology] DLT platform"....
Swift seemingly has an ace up their sleeve to one-up blockchain-based projects. Financial infrastructure is on the brink of being disrupted by new technologies. Mainly blockchain technology is one of the contenders to disrupt the financial sector as we know it. Swift, one of the world’s leading money transfer protocols, will make sure they are not replaced by distributed ledgers. A very bold statement that will require a lot more than just strong words. The vast majority of international interbank messages and transfers takes place on the Swift network. Even though the group operating this....
In recent weeks, hot topics in the banking and blockchain technology sector have been the heist of $81 million from Bangladesh's central bank facilitated by hackers manipulating the SWIFT (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications) messaging platform, and the oft-repeated buzzwords "blockchain" and "distributed ledger" as the "white knight" technology duo that's going to correct all that ails SWIFT. SWIFT is a global interbank messaging service connecting 11,000 financial institutions in more than 200 countries and territories around the....
Rostec, the Russian manufacturing and technology conglomerate, has developed a system allowing the processing of international settlements and storage of digital currency. The blockchain-based platform has been announced as an alternative to SWIFT, which is unavailable for some Russian banks. Rostec Employs Distributed Ledger Technology to Substitute SWIFT Russian state-owned corporation Rostec has built a platform using blockchain technologies to facilitate international settlements between Russia and its partners and the storage of digital currency. CELLS is intended as an alternative to....
While some financial experts feel it is still too early something as significant as distributed ledgers, the question becomes how much longer they can afford to hold off on this inevitable change. The second SWIFT hack sheds an interesting light on permissioned systems and cybersecurity. Although no data has been hacked, the loss of money could have been prevented by using more modern technology, such as distributed ledgers as the one found in Bitcoin. Distributed Ledgers Vs. Archaic Centralized Systems. While it is commendable SWIFT representatives openly admit their network played a part....