Swift‘sโ Push for Richer Data Aims to Dissolveโฃ Cross-Border Payment Friction
NEW YORK – Sept. 29, 2025 – Swift is spearheading โฃanโค industry-wide effort toโ leverage โขricher, more structured data to dramatically improve the speed, clarity, and efficiency of cross-border payments. The initiative focuses on incorporating detailed details – including โคultimate originatorsโ and beneficiaries, remittance data, purpose โคcodes,โค and โstandardizedโฃ identifiers โขlike Legal Entity Identifiers (LEIs) – into โpayment messaging.
Historically, cross-border payments have been plagued by inefficiencies โdue to incompleteโ or โขambiguous data, requiring extensive manualโข checks and remediationโ by financial โขinstitutions. However, the adoption of richer data formats promises to automate these โprocesses, โคlowering โขoperational risk and complianceโ overhead, especially inโฃ high-risk corridors.
The benefits extend beyond cost savings.When data arrives in aโ consistent โformat, intermediaries can process paymentsโฃ with โfewer manual interventions,โฃ enabling faster crediting of funds and โmore predictable delivery windows. Some payment corridorsโ that previously tookโฃ two to three days are now approaching same-day settlement.โ Transparency โisโฃ also improving, with tracking tools modeled on parcel-shipping interfaces providing treasurers with real-time visibility into payment status.
Despite the potential, the success of this initiative hingesโข on consistent โinterpretation of the data by all participants – banks, corporates, payment serviceโ providers, andโข regulators. A weak link in the chain, such as a supplier’s system truncating remittance information, can negate the benefits ofโค downstream automation.
The push for richer data is a key theme at the upcoming B2B PYMNTS 2025 event, “B2B.AI: โThe Architecture of Clever Money Movement,” taking place Oct. โ6 to 31.