SWIFT’s Blockchain Ledger Goes Live With 17 Banks in 24/7 Pilot

SWIFT, the bank-owned cooperative that runs the world’s largest financial messaging network, announced on 9 July 2026 from Brussels that its new blockchain-based shared ledger is ready for an initial live run, with 17 banks from six continents preparing to pilot 24/7 tokenised cross-border payments, per the SWIFT press release on the 9 July launch. The cooperative says the ledger is the first use case of a multi-use infrastructure built in nine months with feedback from international financial institutions. The pilot covers ANZ, BNP Paribas, BNY, Citi, HSBC, UBS, and Wells Fargo among its 17 names.

The pilot roster reads like a roll call of global banking: ANZ, BNP Paribas, BNY, Citi, DBS, First Abu Dhabi Bank, FirstRand, HSBC, Itaú Unibanco, Lloyds Banking Group, Mashreq, MUFG Bank, OCBC, Standard Chartered, UBS, UOB and Wells Fargo. Each bank will use the ledger to move tokenised deposits around the clock, with final settlement still happening on the existing correspondent rails the network already runs.

Brussels Turns the Ledger On

Swift, headquartered in Belgium and owned by its member banks, designed and built the new ledger in nine months with input from international financial institutions. The development draws on messaging rails already trusted to move the equivalent of world GDP every two to three days across more than 200 markets. Thierry Chilosi, Swift’s chief business officer, led the announcement.

With our new ledger capability, we’re extending the trust and stability of established finance into the frontiers of digital money. It allows tokenised value to move across borders with the velocity and flexibility modern commerce expects, while maintaining the same high levels of resiliency, security, and compliance global finance requires.

Chilosi also pointed at what comes next. The release names programmable money and agentic commerce as future use cases for the ledger, which would let payments execute automatically when conditions are met.

The 17 Banks Preparing Live Pilot Transactions

The 17-bank cohort spans every region where the cooperative runs high-value rails. The pilot mix covers ANZ, DBS, HSBC, MUFG Bank, OCBC, Standard Chartered, and UOB across Asia-Pacific, with HSBC, Standard Chartered, BNP Paribas, Lloyds Banking Group, and UBS in Europe. The US roster includes three of its largest deposit-takers by assets (BNY, Citi, Wells Fargo). First Abu Dhabi Bank and Mashreq join from the Gulf, FirstRand from Africa, and Itaú Unibanco from Latin America.

• North America: BNY, Citi, Wells Fargo
• Europe: BNP Paribas, HSBC, Lloyds Banking Group, Standard Chartered, UBS
• Asia-Pacific: ANZ, DBS, MUFG Bank, OCBC, UOB
• Middle East: First Abu Dhabi Bank (FAB), Mashreq
• Africa: FirstRand Bank
• Latin America: Itaú Unibanco

HSBC is bringing its Tokenised Deposit Service onto the shared ledger, Manish Kohli, head of global payments solutions at the bank, said in the Swift statement. Standard Chartered’s Mahesh Kini, global head of cash management, was more direct: the bank “is redefining cross-border payments” by pairing the new ledger with its own regional network.

By the Numbers

• 17 banks in the initial pilot
• 6 continents represented
• 9 months from announcement to live pilot
• 200+ markets already served by Swift’s network
• 11,500 banking and securities organisations connected today
• 75% of payments on the network already reach beneficiary banks within 10 minutes

By size and geography, the cohort is large enough to test the ledger’s core claim that bank-issued tokenised deposits can move 24/7 between trusted counterparties on a shared rail. With six continents represented, the participating banks span the regions where the cooperative holds significant market share. The mix also means tokenised cross-border flows can be tested between the major trade corridors: US dollar, euro, sterling, yen, real, dirham, rand, and Singapore dollar.

Tokenised Deposits, With Settlement Still on the Old Rails

The shared ledger works as an orchestration layer over each bank’s own ledger. A bank issues a tokenised deposit on its books, moves that token across the shared ledger to a counterparty, then completes final settlement through the existing correspondent banking system the network already runs. The token carries the value while it moves, and the books close on the rails banks have trusted for decades. The new layer is purpose-built for payments, sitting between the message and the settlement, and designed to be expanded into programmable-money use cases Swift has not yet named publicly.

Swift made the architecture explicit in its release: tokenised value can move “before completing final settlement through existing systems.” That line is the one that distinguishes the ledger from a public blockchain pilot; the ledger is permissioned, the participating institutions are named, and the assets are bank-issued tokens that stay redeemable one-for-one for the deposit underneath.

HSBC’s Kohli tied the shift to the bank’s existing Tokenised Deposit Service and said the change would let cross-border payments run in real time across time zones, without the artificial cut-offs. Citi, also connecting, contributed its own line through the bank’s head of payments services, Debopama Sen, who said the launch “represents an important step towards enabling always-on payments and liquidity.” The framing matches the cooperative’s release: bank-issued money operating on top of the rails banks already use.

DBS’s Lim Soon Chong, Standard Chartered’s Mahesh Kini, and UBS’s Andreas Kubli underlined similar benefits in their banks’ own statements to Swift. Across all four, two themes carried the same weight: cash flow visibility and 24/7 liquidity, paired with retention of the compliance and risk frame banking already operates in.

Where Ripple and Crypto Networks Fit in the Frame

Ripple Treasury already sits inside the Swift Certified Partner Program, where it offers “global bank connectivity and hosting options for Swift’s Alliance,” per Ripple’s listing in the SWIFT Certified Partner Program. SWIFT’s blockchain ledger is a different design from a public crypto rail, permissioned and bank-issued only. The new layer is a closed member network that operates inside the cooperative’s own infrastructure, while public crypto rails carry every transaction on a public chain.

For banks, the Swift ledger offers a closer approximation to the instant leg that public networks have piloted on the spot side. Final settlement still finishes on the correspondent system, but the orchestration layer delivers that “instant” experience without forcing a bank to hold prefunded nostro accounts in every corridor. Swift’s own network now carries 75% of its payments to beneficiary banks within 10 minutes on the legacy rail that the new ledger is built to extend. Wider tokenisation in regulated finance is moving in parallel, including in collateral frameworks (a derivatives pilot for tokenised collateral from the CFTC).

How Swift Went From Announcement to Pilot in Nine Months

The build has been compressed. Swift first disclosed the project on 29 September 2025, when it committed to “adding a blockchain-based shared ledger to our technology infrastructure.” By 30 March 2026, the design phase was complete and the first iteration was under active build. On 9 July 2026, the ledger was reported ready for initial use.

1. 29 September 2025: Swift publicly commits to a blockchain-based shared ledger.
2. 30 March 2026: Design phase complete; first iteration under active build.
3. 9 July 2026: 17 banks prepared to pilot live cross-border tokenised payments.

Speed was a deliberate choice. Swift’s own social account posted on the launch day: “Implemented in 9 months. Global from day one,” per Swift’s own 9 July post on the nine-month build. The release framed the development as “sets the stage for next generation innovation and interoperability on infrastructure already trusted to move the equivalent of world GDP every two to three days between more than 200 markets.”

What the Pilot Still Has to Prove

Swift calls the rollout a “controlled go-live phase” with plans to expand “in functionality and availability.” Tokenised deposits settle between banks on the shared ledger, but the final leg still walks the existing correspondent system. A trade-off holds: any leg moving on the ledger stays inside bank-issued tokens and existing compliance. Yet it does not, on its own, change the underlying settlement asset or the central-bank money it ties back to.

Settlement that closes outside bank operating hours, on a 24/7 basis, remains untouched by the current pilot design. A second question is interoperability. The ledger connects participating banks but does not yet give a clear answer to settlement across multiple blockchain networks.

Regulated-finance pilots elsewhere are filling in adjacent pieces. Across Europe, for instance, fresh infrastructure funding at the bank tier is testing stablecoin adoption for cross-border payments (a pre-seed raise for bank stablecoin adoption in Europe). Swift, according to its own release, is “continuing to explore more use cases with our community,” which means the standards for non-bank networks are still being negotiated. Swift has tagged the launch as “the first use case” for the new ledger, signalling additional capabilities are still to come. The cooperative is also running a separate retail payments framework, with over 50 banks signed up, which it points to as a parallel push for transparency and full value delivery.

Swift has 17 banks signed up and a working ledger that has moved from design to MVP to live pilot. The pilot’s broader lift will be measured by how many of those banks move to production transactions. Settlement between bank-issued tokens and central-bank money moving onto the new rail remains the open question for the next expansion phase. For now, the launch marks the cooperative’s clearest move yet toward tokenised money on shared infrastructure, with named counterparties and a working build in hand.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Swift’s blockchain-based ledger?

Swift, the bank-owned cooperative that connects more than 11,500 financial institutions, announced on 9 July 2026 that a blockchain-based shared ledger it built in nine months is ready for an initial live run. The ledger lets participating banks move bank-issued tokenised deposits around the clock, with final settlement taking place on the existing correspondent rails.

Which banks are piloting the ledger?

The initial roster is 17 banks from six continents: ANZ, BNP Paribas, BNY, Citi, DBS, First Abu Dhabi Bank, FirstRand, HSBC, Itaú Unibanco, Lloyds Banking Group, Mashreq, MUFG Bank, OCBC, Standard Chartered, UBS, UOB and Wells Fargo.

Is Swift replacing XRP or any crypto rail?

No. Swift’s announcement keeps final settlement on the banks’ existing correspondent rails, and the ledger orchestrates tokenised deposit movement between participating institutions. Ripple Treasury is already a member of the Swift Certified Partner Program, a separate commercial arrangement from this shared-ledger pilot.

How fast did Swift build the new ledger?

From announcement on 29 September 2025 to “ready for initial use” on 9 July 2026, Swift said, was nine months of design and build with feedback from international financial institutions.

Does the ledger cover weekends and overnight?

Yes. The pilot moves tokenised deposits 24/7, including overnight and on weekends, before final settlement on the existing correspondent system. The feature is what HSBC’s Manish Kohli called the move away from “artificial cut-offs.”