Swift to Pilot Digital Asset and Currency Transactions in 2025

Swift will begin live trials for digital asset and currency transactions in 2025, engaging banks across North America, Europe, and Asia in a major step toward real-world applications. By leveraging its existing network, Swift aims to merge digital and traditional assets, addressing the challenges of disconnected platforms. The trials build on successful blockchain experiments, seeking to interlink public, private networks, and CBDCs, potentially transforming global transactions.

Swift to Launch Digital Asset Transaction Trials in 2025

Swift announced on Oct. 3 that it will begin live trials for digital asset and currency transactions in 2025. Banks across North America, Europe, and Asia will be involved, utilizing the Swift network to pilot settlements of digital assets and currencies, transitioning from experimentation to real-world applications. The company detailed:

Next year we’ll be collaborating with our community to pilot an advanced version of our infrastructure that is capable of orchestrating digital asset and currency transactions across networks for the first time.

These trials will allow global financial institutions to transact digital and traditional assets across different platforms using their existing Swift connections. According to Swift’s Chief Innovation Officer, Tom Zschach, the goal is to demonstrate a global network capable of supporting both digital and fiat currency transactions securely.

Zschach explained, “For digital assets and currencies to succeed on a global scale, it’s critical that they can seamlessly coexist with traditional forms of money.” The trials will build on successful experiments that demonstrated Swift’s capacity to connect public and private blockchains and interlink central bank digital currencies (CBDCs).

The trials are expected to address the challenge of disconnected digital platforms, or “digital islands,” which hinder the adoption of digital assets. With 134 countries exploring CBDCs and tokenized assets potentially reaching $30 trillion by 2034, the trials will focus on ensuring global interconnectivity. Swift’s infrastructure will facilitate cross-border transactions between digital and fiat currencies. Zschach emphasized the significance of this progress, stating:

This move will mark an important milestone as we progress towards achieving our ultimate vision of giving financial institutions a single point of access to multiple digital asset classes and currencies.

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