Swift declares blockchain ledger ready in 17-bank, cross-continent pilot launch

Swift announced in a July 9 statement that its blockchain-based ledger is open for business, with 17 lenders already lined up to start using it to send cross-border payments across six continents using tokenized deposits. 

Swift is big news from a network that already processes the equivalent of global GDP every 2 to 3 days across more than 200 markets. Now, the infrastructure is in place for banks and corporate treasuries to settle international transfers round the clock. 

Today’s announcement lays the groundwork for the first public demonstration of a ledger that Swift first showcased at its Sibos conference in September 2025. 

What does Swift’s blockchain ledger do?

The blockchain-based ledger that Swift introduced Thursday is not a payments platform in the traditional sense. The ledger, which runs on Hyperledger Besu, an open-source, Ethereum-compatible framework, is more closely related to an orchestration layer. 

Swift’s system allows customer funds to move on a 24/7 schedule by recording and validating the payment commitments that banks make to one another when they issue tokenized deposits on their own ledgers. Banks can then square up when they open for their usual business hours.

All 17 banks mentioned in Swift’s announcement still need to use their own tokenized deposit to use the ledger because settlement is decoupled. HSBC confirmed that its Tokenised Deposit Service is already wired into the new infrastructure. 

Another important bit of context from today’s announcement is that the participating banks are only preparing to pilot for now. The Swift blockchain ledger will not actually settle any transactions today. 

Still, the platform has moved to the next stage after wrapping up its design phase in March.

Which banks have committed to the Swift ledger?

Swift has arranged an all-star line-up of 17 institutions ready to test live transactions on its blockchain ledger, naming ANZ, BNP Paribas, BNY, Citi, DBS, First Abu Dhabi Bank, FirstRand Bank, HSBC, Itaú Unibanco, Lloyds Bank, Mashreq, MUFG Bank, OCBC, Standard Chartered, UBS, UOB and Wells Fargo, in its announcement.

“With our new ledger capability, we’re extending the trust and stability of established finance into the frontiers of digital money,” Thierry Chilosi, Swift’s Chief Business Officer, said. The executive also left the door open to expanding the ledger for developing use cases such as programmable money and the “agentic commerce” push. 

Carl Slabicki, who heads commercial payments and trade at BNY, and ANZ’s transaction banking managing director Lisa Vasic both recognized how Swift’s ledger reaching the pilot stage allows them to adapt their existing business to the 24/7, always-on market that customers have started to shift toward. 

The race to lead payments and deposit settlement is on 

Swift is under pressure to keep correspondent banking relevant as tokenized money and new settlement rails gain ground. The cooperative connects more than 11,500 institutions and says 75% of payments on its existing network already reach the beneficiary bank within 10 minutes, and often in seconds. The ledger is its attempt to answer the demand for weekend and overnight movement that traditional banking hours cannot serve.

It is not moving into an empty field. JPMorgan, Bank of America, Citibank, Barclays, BNY and Wells Fargo are part of a consortium that announced a separate tokenized deposit network last month, targeting a launch in the first half of 2027 with The Clearing House running the infrastructure. 

Swift has said its own ledger will expand in functionality and availability once the controlled go-live phase is behind it.

The next thing to watch is simple: whether the first live payment actually clears, and how quickly the 17 banks move from integration to production.