Cross-border payments have earned the reputation of being slow, convoluted and costly. A decade ago, the thought of settling a transcontinental payment on the same day would have been unthinkable. Today, it can be done in seconds.

In 2019, Swift oversaw the settlement of payments between 17 different banks across seven countries in a trial of its new global payment initiative service, Swift GPI. Payments between all continents were settled within 25 seconds – the fastest of these in just 13.

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