SWIFT plans to launch a new central bank digital currency platform within 12-24 months

The Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) is planning to build a new platform in the next one to two years to connect the currently developing central bank digital currency (CBDC) with the existing financial system. Given SWIFT’s critical role in the global banking sector, this will be one of the most significant initiatives to date for the nascent CBDC ecosystem, likely to be fine-tuned when the first major CBDCs are launched. Nick Kerigan, head of innovation at SWIFT, said the latest trial lasted six months and involved 38 central banks, commercial banks and settlement platforms. Its focus is on ensuring that CBDCs in different countries can be used together, even if they are based on different underlying technologies or “protocols”, thereby reducing the risk of fragmentation of payment systems.