Swift's Blockchain Ledger Goes Live With 17 Banks for Tokenized Payments

Swift said its blockchain-based ledger is ready for initial use, with 17 banks from six continents preparing to pilot live cross-border payments using tokenized deposits for round-the-clock settlement.

The cooperative announced July 9 that the ledger, first showcased at its Sibos conference in September 2025, has moved past the design phase that wrapped in March. The 17 banks are ANZ, BNP Paribas, BNY, Citi, DBS, First Abu Dhabi Bank, FirstRand Bank, HSBC, Itaú Unibanco, Lloyds Bank, Mashreq, MUFG Bank, OCBC, Standard Chartered, UBS, UOB and Wells Fargo.

The ledger runs on Hyperledger Besu, an open-source Ethereum-compatible framework. It acts as an orchestration layer rather than a settlement system. Banks issue tokenized deposits on their own ledgers, then record the payment commitment on Swift's shared ledger. The actual interbank settlement happens separately through conventional channels such as RTGS systems or correspondent banking when normal banking hours resume.

HSBC confirmed its Tokenised Deposit Service is already wired into the new infrastructure, according to the announcement. Carl Slabicki, who heads commercial payments and trade at BNY, said in the release that the pilot lets his bank adapt its existing business to the always-on market customers are shifting toward.

Correspondent banking has a speed problem. Swift says 75% of payments on its existing network reach the beneficiary bank within 10 minutes, often in seconds. The network stops on weekends and overnight. Tokenized deposits on a continuous ledger are Swift's answer to the demand for after-hours movement that traditional banking hours cannot serve.

The cooperative is not moving into an empty field. JPMorgan, Bank of America, Citibank, Barclays, BNY and Wells Fargo are part of a separate consortium that announced a tokenized deposit network last month, targeting a first-half 2027 launch with The Clearing House running the infrastructure. Swift's head start on live testing does not guarantee market adoption. The consortium includes major U.S. clearing infrastructure.

Thierry Chilosi, Swift's chief business officer, said in the release that the ledger extends the trust of established finance into digital money. He also left the door open to programmable money and agentic commerce use cases. The next milestone will be the first live payment that actually clears. Swift has not scheduled a date for that. The speed at which the 17 banks move from integration to production will tell how real the demand is.

For the banks involved, the practical question is whether the ledger reduces the cost and friction of cross-border settlement enough to justify the integration work. Swift connects more than 11,500 institutions and processes the equivalent of global GDP every 2 to 3 days across more than 200 markets. The ledger is its attempt to keep correspondent banking relevant as tokenized money and new settlement rails gain ground.