Swift unveils new rules to accelerate cross-border retail payments

Swift, the global financial messaging network, has announced a new framework designed to bring greater speed, transparency and certainty to cross-border retail payments.

Swift unveils new rules

Working with more than 30 leading banks, including JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Deutsche Bank, Santander and Lloyds, the initiative extends capabilities once reserved for wholesale transactions into the consumer and SME sphere.

The scheme sets out clear rules to ensure retail transfers are processed with predictable costs and settlement times.

According to Swift, this means no hidden fees, full-value delivery to beneficiaries and instant settlement wherever domestic infrastructures and regulatory conditions allow.

A Significant Step Forwards

Thierry Chilosi, Swift’s chief business officer, said the new framework marked a significant step towards modernising international payments for individuals and small businesses.

“Together with the industry, we are bringing the same benefits wholesale clients already enjoy to retail customers around the world,” he noted.

“Consumers sending money to family overseas or SMEs paying suppliers abroad should be able to rely on fast, transparent and predictable payments.”

Swift data shows that three-quarters of transactions on its network already reach beneficiary banks within ten minutes.

However, a newly published paper highlights that most delays occur outside Swift’s remit.

Just 20% of the total processing time relates to Swift’s cross-border leg, with 80% attributable to last-mile frictions such as domestic regulations, market infrastructure limitations and local practices.

Addressing Bottlenecks

By codifying service levels and engaging with policymakers, Swift aims to address these bottlenecks.

The organisation has also positioned itself as an open network, supporting a range of value transfer methods while maintaining compliance and interoperability across more than 200 countries and four billion bank accounts.

The latest measures build on consumer-facing innovations such as Swift Go, which has already simplified low-value international transfers, and benchmarking tools that provide banks with performance metrics to improve customer service.

The initiative arrives at a time when corporate treasuries are themselves drawing inspiration from consumer FinTech.

As globalisation increases demand for 24/7 settlement, treasurers are deploying multi-currency wallets and routing payments across local rails to optimise for cost or speed, while still using Swift for regulatory compliance on higher-value transactions.

Industry analysts see Swift’s rulebook for retail payments as part of a wider portfolio approach, blending traditional financial plumbing with next-generation infrastructure.

If successful, it could help reset customer expectations around cross-border money movement—long seen as slow, opaque and expensive—by embedding predictability into the system.