The Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) is reportedly forging an alliance with France-based IT entity Capgemini to run testings for cross-border CBDC payments. 

Specifically, SWIFT – a Belgian entity utilized by banks for global money transfers – teamed up with Capgemini for its second CBDC-focused initiative, to carry out trial phases for connecting different CBDC networks, together with CBDC and traditional currency networks, as a proof of concept.

The large number of central banks throughout the globe are reportedly investing resources in CBDC creation, “with numerous central banks developing their own digital currencies based on different technologies, standards and protocols”, per Thomas Zschach, SWIFT chief innovation officer. 

Per the firm’ statement, it is currently working on the development of a gateway supporting domestic CBDC networks for intercepting, translating and forwarding them to the SWIFT platform for onward transmission. 

The solution will utilize currently available SWIFT standards, authentication models and infrastructure. SWIFT carries out the linking of more than 11,000 financial institutions across more than 200 nations.

SWIFT’s freshly formed partnership is reportedly a continuation of the attempts that initiated in 2021 with US-based professional services firm Accenture. 

That collaboration was a successful adventure, in terms of the creation of a cross-border transaction between a CBDC network and “an established real-time gross settlement (RTGS) system.”

“If the experiments are successful, it will demonstrate that SWIFT has the capability and technical components to interlink different networks,”

“This would help solve a huge technology and industry challenge facing CBDCs. And it could enable us to help central banks make their own CBDC networks cross-border payment ready.” SWIFT head of innovation Nick Kerigan additionally remarked.