Major payments bodies join forces for new cross-border project

EBA Clearing, Swift, and The Clearing House have partnered to trial a synchronised settlement system the group claims could increase the speed of domestic payments.

The trio say improving domestic payment rails can help cross-border transactions

The Immediate Cross-Border Payments (IXB) project has 11 banks contributing to its design and development.

Seven of those firms – Bank of America, BBVA, Citi, HSBC, Intesa Sanpaolo, JP Morgan, and PNC – participated in the proof of concept.

The trio say IXB can revamp existing regional payment systems and make cross-border transactions available for institutions of “all sizes”.

IXB takes advantage of existing payment rails and utilises Swift’s ISO 20022 messaging standards. This, the partners claim, allows for increased innovation and competition.

“By leveraging the RTP network in the United States and RT1 in Europe, along with ISO 20022 message formats, IXB demonstrates a faster cross-border payments capability,” says Russ Waterhouse, executive vice president for product development and strategy at The Clearing House.

“By utilising existing faster payments systems, financial institutions can leverage existing processes, protocols, and technology to make the user experience seamless.”

David Watson, chief strategy officer for Swift, says that linking market infrastructures is a “fundamental pillar” of Swift’s ongoing strategy.

Raouf Soussi Laghmich, head of strategy for enterprise payments at BBVA, says the ability to synchronise the settlement process for domestic instant payments can enable cross-border scale.

He adds the initiative can deliver “tangible benefits” for international businesses and customers.