In just over a year SWIFT gpi already accounts for 20% of cross border MT103

17/05/2018

SWIFT gpi is on its way to become the standard for all of them by the end of 2020. In just over a year SWIFT gpi already accounts for 20% of cross border MT103.

51 banks are now live while 110 are onboarding and should start shortly. Every month new financial institutions join the SWIFT gpi initiative, which has now been adopted by over 160 banks around the world, and almost every one of the top 50 banks, covering 80% of all cross-border payments.

Proud to be a SWIFT gpi member from the beginning, Societe Generale has been live since November 2017 and sends thousands of gpi payments in Euro and major currencies daily, not only for its retail and corporate customers but also for financial institution clients. Traffic is expected to increase significantly month after month as new banks go live, thus allowing new gpi corridors to be opened.

An unequaled service for cross-border payments

Like other gpi banks, Societe Generale takes full advantage of the value delivered by SWIFT gpi:

  • over 50% of our gpi payments are credited to the end beneficiary in less than 30 minutes and some even in seconds.
  • the final amount paid to the beneficiary is confirmed in real time and fees are displayed in the tracker.
  • the status of a payment is available in real-time
  • the use of the unique end to end reference (UETR) smoothens our reconciliation and investigation processes.
  • our back-office enquiry costs are expected to drop significantly (up to 50% already reported by some gpi banks)
  • our financial institution clients will soon be able to track their payments on our web-banking system ( Webclear) .

 

Societe Generale committed to develop the new SWIFT gpi services

From 18 November with the SWIFT Standards Release 2018 (SR2018), Societe Generale will also implement the new added-value services delivered by SWIFT gpi:

  • gpi Cover Payment: the gpi MT202COV will be sent with the same UETR as the underlying gpi Customer Credit Transfer (MT103) and thus will be traceable as well. This is expected to speed up payment processing when there is no direct account relationship between the sender and receiver of a payment and facilitate reconciliations or investigations.
  • gpi Stop and Recall: to immediately stop payments in case of fraud or error, no matter where they are in the gpi transaction chain.
  • gpi Universal Tracking: SR2018 will make the unique end-to-end transaction reference (UETR) mandatory on all payment messages thus enabling gpi banks to trace every payment even if some of the banks handling the transaction are not gpi members.

 

Offering ever more efficient solutions

As a member of the gpi Vision Group, Societe Generale is also taking part in several working groups and initiatives looking at:

  • the standardization of bank-to-corporate tracking information with a pilot for SWIFT-connected corporates
  • linking gpi into domestic instant payment systems to facilitate “real-time” cross-border payments
  • a gpi ISO 20022 based service, in tandem with SWIFT’s ISO 20022 migration study
  • an International Payments assistant (gIPA) to improve Straight-Through-Processing by bringing verifications at payment origin
  • the tracking of MT202 (gFIT service)

 

Societe Generale is fully involved in SWIFTgpi which remains unrivalled to securely deliver cross-border payments to potentially 11,000 SWIFT-connected banks all around the world within minutes or even seconds. Our objective is to contribute to the expansion of SWIFTgpi, making it the new norm and making the confirmation of all payments a standard as soon as possible.