SWIFT, the giant of the global banking communication network, recently announced a major plan to integrate digital assets. This is not only a technological advancement, but also an innovation in the financial field.
SWIFT revealed on social media X on September 11 that they are building a platform that allows member banks to trade traditional currencies and emerging crypto assets on their network. This may mean that in the near future, interbank transactions will cover the fiat currencies we are familiar with, as well as cryptocurrencies.
SWIFT, a cooperative founded in 1973 and headquartered in Belgium, is jointly owned by banks and other financial institutions around the world that use its services. Its move is undoubtedly a bold exploration of the financial technology field.
Opening up the market with Ethereum and RWA
Of particular note, Matthew Sigel, head of digital asset research at VanEck, observed that SWIFT specifically mentioned Ethereum in its announcement, which was the only L1 blockchain they explicitly mentioned. This shows that SWIFT attaches great importance to the interoperability between traditional finance and emerging technologies such as tokenized assets and central bank digital currencies (CBDCs).
In SWIFT’s announcement, the growth potential of tokenized real-world assets (RWA) was specifically mentioned. Research by Standard Chartered Bank predicts that the size of this market could reach $30 trillion by 2034. Moreover, 91% of institutional investors expressed interest in investing in tokenized assets, which shows the market’s strong interest in this area.
However, there are currently multiple decentralized “digital islands” in the market due to differences in platforms, technologies, and regulations. This is a complex and challenging problem for institutional investors who want to operate on multiple tokenized platforms.
To address this issue, SWIFT has experimented with blockchain transfers and RWAs, and says their infrastructure can facilitate tokenized value transfers between public and private blockchains.
Conclusion:
Looking ahead, SWIFT plans to continue working with the financial community in the coming months to develop technology solutions that will provide access to digital assets and currencies across a variety of use cases and enable securities investors to make payments and exchange tokenized assets simultaneously in real time.
While SWIFT’s announcement sounds positive for the cryptocurrency market, users may not use the network directly to send decentralized digital assets. However, this could bring potential benefits to underlying infrastructure such as Ethereum and Chainlink. At the same time, SWIFT is already working with Chainlink to explore the possibility of integrating different blockchain networks.
This move by SWIFT marks a further development of the global banking network in the field of digital assets. We look forward to seeing how this change will affect the financial markets in the future.
👇 What do you think about SWIFT’s plan to integrate digital assets? Share your thoughts in the comments!
