Ripple's relationship with traditional banking networks may be more closely understood than it was before. Public documents show that Ripple Payments supports interoperability with SWIFT, which means that financial institutions can access Ripple ' s cross-border settlement infrastructure without abandoning existing processes.

Documentation of interoperability capabilities

According to an official file by Ripple, which was compiled by an encrypted researcher SMQKE, SWIFT messaaging infrastructure was listed as one of the core competencies of Ripple Payments, along with automated organization and third-party expansion.

This definition does not focus on “replacement of SWIFT”, but rather on enabling banks and payment service providers to continue to follow familiar reporting standards while connecting block chaining capabilities to existing systems.

There's two levels between the paper and the settlement.

SWIFT is the world ' s leading financial network, connecting more than 11 million financial institutions. Its central role is to transmit payment instructions rather than directly complete the settlement of funds.

  • SWIFT is responsible for the payment of the message.
  • Ripple focuses on cross-border financial settlements
  • XRP as a needs-based mobility tool

The article also mentions that Ripple Payments supports ISO 20022 reporting standards, which facilitates their interface with the upgraded banking system.

SWIFT upgrades bring new contrasts

SWIFT has also recently advanced modernization and disclosed plans to improve global settlement efficiency based on block-chain books. According to the article, this does not necessarily weaken Ripple ' s positioning, but rather suggests that distributed booking technology is entering into cross-border financial infrastructure discussions.

Currently, about 75 per cent of international payments have reached the recipient within 10 minutes. However, the issues of liquidity occupancy, settlement costs and middle-line dependency have not completely disappeared, and these are also the links that Ripple is trying to get into.

What needs to be distinguished is that the document content does not mean that SWIFT has adopted XRP, or has access to Ripple ' s settlement network. More precisely, Ripple Payments has been designed in the direction of compatible SWIFT reporting formats to facilitate greater flexibility for financial institutions in upgrading payment systems.