SWIFT teams up with banks to bring cross-border payments service to Malaysia

By Digital News Asia September 25, 2018

Teams up with Maybank, Hong Leong Bank, CIMB Bank, Bank Islam, and Bank Rakyat
Offers the secure delivery of high-speed cross-border payments that are tracked from start to finish

SWIFT teams up with banks to bring cross-border payments service to Malaysia

SWIFT has announced that it will work with five Malaysian banks to bring its global payments innovation (gpi) initiative to Malaysia in coming months.

The banks are Maybank, Hong Leong Bank, CIMB Bank Berhad, Bank Islam, and Bank Rakyat, which will implement the gpi service in the months to come. They join over 230 banks worldwide that have already committed to SWIFT gpi.

SWIFT gpi offers a first in the industry - the secure delivery of high-speed cross-border payments that are tracked from start to finish. When live, the service will allow payments to be delivered in a fraction of the time it currently takes for them to reach the end beneficiary.

SWIFT gpi-enabled banks and their customers will be able to track each payment from start to finish in real-time with a cloud-based tracker, and gain full transparency on transaction and FX fees. This leads to cost-efficiencies, increased treasury management control and shorter supply cycles for corporate customers.

"We are delighted to welcome five of Malaysia's leading banks to SWIFT gpi. The initiative will dramatically improve the customer experience in cross-border payments by increasing their speed, transparency and end-to-end tracking, bringing valuable benefits to Malaysian users and paving the way for economic competitiveness in the market," says Bernard Woodruff, country director for Malaysia, SWIFT.

Trade figures for Malaysia have been on the rise, registering RM935.39 billion in 2017, an increase of 19.4% year on year. Asean markets and mainland China have ranked consistently as Malaysia's largest trade partners for both import and export.

Twenty banks are currently live on SWIFT gpi in Asean and mainland China, while 65 others are in the process of going live. The availability of SWIFT's cross-border payments service in Malaysia opens up additional trade opportunities for the country in Asia and beyond.

"Malaysia is the latest Asean market to roll out the initiative, which has already seen success in other parts of the region. The presence of a high-speed cross-border service will afford customers in Malaysia standardised connectivity with multiple markets in the region, further facilitating integration and fostering economic growth across Asean," continues Woodruff.

As part of its ongoing efforts towards regional integration, SWIFT is also working with a group of gpi banks from Australia, China, Singapore and Thailand to test its new instant cross-border SWIFT gpi payments service in Asia Pacific.

Once live, the service will introduce significant benefits that extend beyond gpi banks and their customers -- in time allowing for a complete real-time cross-border payments experience for all bank customers in the region, improving customer experience and allowing for faster P2P remittances and SME trade settlement.

SWIFT gpi has seen rapid adoption with more than 100 billion USD in SWIFT gpi messages sent every day. Half of SWIFT gpi payments are credited to end beneficiaries in less than 30 minutes and over 90% of gpi payments are credited within 24 hours.

Over 30% of all SWIFT cross-border payments are now sent on gpi, and more than 230 banks, including 49 of the world's top 50 banks, have already signed up to the gpi service.

By end 2020, the SWIFT Community will have universally adopted the gpi service, a move that will see all 10,000 banks on SWIFT's global network use the global payments innovation service for cross border payments.