SWIFT - connecting money across the globe!

SWIFT - connecting money across the globe!

We are living in a world of connectivity, digitization and growing customer expectations, with a huge pressure on banks and corporates to maintain a global presence. Today, corporates are operating from different locations, having multiple bank and vendor relationships and are serving customers in every corner of the world.

This global presence also requires movement of money globally between corporates, customers, vendors and their banks. To make this movement of payment safe, secure & reliable, SWIFT is seen as the most preferred solution for decades.

Financial institutions & Corporates can connect to a SWIFT network through the below options:

No alt text provided for this image


Alliance Lite2- It is SWIFT’s cloud offering which ensures customers connecting to this network can connect without investing in heavy infrastructure.

Lite2 for business Applications- also known as L2BA.?It is an integrated service through a third party partner’s business applications such as treasury management system(TMS) or enterprise resource planning system(ERP).

On Premises- This is the most traditional way to connect to a SWIFT network, providing full control to run the operations on a daily basis. Definitely the most expensive option as one needs to ensure managing the entire SWIFT infrastructure by themselves as well as requires full time resources to manage it.

Service Bureau- A “Service Bureau” is a center approved by SWIFT with the objective of granting access to the SWIFTNet InterAct, FileAct, Browse and FIN services. SWIFT service bureaus allow banks and corporates to access the SWIFT network, without heavily investing in SWIFT infrastructure.

A SWIFT Service Bureau has messaging capabilities that include Payments, FX/Treasury and Market Infrastructure and others. For corporations, this connection allows for streamlined access to your financial data using the ISO20022 and MT formatted messages. Benefits available are:

?Receiving intraday balance reporting,

?Importing/exporting letters of credit, and

?FX confirmations.

For financial institutions, this connection allows for you to exchange ISO20022 and MT formatted messages with your business clients, opening a far greater reach for your products.

There are over 125 such bureaus globally used by over 3,500 SWIFT members, i.e., more than one-third of SWIFT’s total membership.

One can simply check out the approved SWIFT service bureaus at the given link:

https://www.swift.com/about-us/partner-programme/shared-infrastructure-programme/service-bureau-directory

What parameters should be considered while choosing a SWIFT Service Bureau?

It can be a daunting task to pick one service bureau from a list of 125 SWIFT certified service bureaus for both banks & corporates who intend to outsource the SWIFT infrastructure & operations management to a third-party service provider. Still the below parameters can be used while evaluating swift service bureaus.

  1. Is the provider transparent with its operations? It is essential to know who and what you are dealing with: those large providers who make public filings make more attractive partners than smaller privately owned bureaus.
  2. Is the provider a strategic player in this business?
  3. Is running a bureau one of its core competences?
  4. Has the provider got scale and international reach?
  5. Are value added services offered in addition to SWIFT connectivity?
  6. Does the provider have key banking relationships?
  7. Does the provider have the top-level bureau certification from SWIFT?

About the Author:

Juhi Sharma?is a payment enthusiast with 9+ years of experience in payments and product management. Prior to joining IBM, she has worked for banks such as HSBC, Credit Agricole Corporate & Investment Bank and ICICI Bank.

Juhi has done her post-graduation from Welingkar Institute in Marketing and B.E (Electronics and telecommunications) from Mumbai University.

Note- The views and opinions expressed or implied in this post are my own from the view of a user.

? PS: PLEASE hit the like button and leave a comment!?

? PPS: Did you know the LinkedIn algorithm weighs one comment equal to 10 likes?

#payments #swiftpayments #internationalpayments #SWIFTservicebureau #cloudsolution #corporatepayments

Article-0012

要查看或添加评论,请登录

Juhi Sharma的更多文章

社区洞察

其他会员也浏览了