A trial has just concluded in Europe between the European Central Bank (ECB), SWIFT and a group of 19 banks using the TARGET Instant Payment Settlement (TIPS) platform. 12 banks successfully sent cross-border payments from 9 countries (Australia, China, Germany, Hong Kong, Italy, Netherlands, Russia, Thailand and United States) into Europe via 5 banks, among which BIL. The fastest payment took just 41 seconds, when it can take days with traditional correspondent banking services. Having achieved impressive results in the trial, as a next step, SWIFT, the European Central Bank and the European banking community will continue work to move this initiative from proof of concept to a fully optimised, live service.

Through a combination of gpi cross-border payment and domestic real-time payment networks SWIFT, together with gpi banks, will facilitate instant international payments with up-front fee and foreign exchange transparency for senders, while also ensuring ubiquitous availability of instant cross-border payments globally. In the future, BIL will be able to offer the service to its customers, from large multi-nationals to SMEs and financial institutions.

Serge Munten, Head of Agile Operations at Banque Internationale à Luxembourg said:

“BIL is proud to be the only bank in Luxembourg to have participated in SWIFT’s global gpi instant payment trials. By joining this initiative, we prove again that BIL is at the forefront of innovation. Once the service is available in Europe, we expect to deliver high value services to our clients, with instant payments 24/7 around the world.“

Harry Newman, Head of Banking, at SWIFT said:

“At SWIFT, we are creating a future in which cross-border payments will be as convenient as domestic ones. It is time for the whole community to come together to seize this opportunity and establish a global real-time payment service.

“We will be discussing with the MIs involved in the trials how to progress to live operation and invite all domestic real time payment systems to come and join in this exciting venture. The technology is in place, it is proven and it is now a reality that cross-border payments can be as fast as domestic payments.”