Hey, it’s Marc,

The “DeFi vs. TradFi” narrative was binary: the banks were the dinosaurs, and the asteroid was coming. Were we wrong? In the last months, the dinosaur didn’t just survive, it learned to fly. And the “SWIFT Killer” thesis might be dead now.

In a quiet trial orchestrated with BNP Paribas, Société Générale, and Intesa Sanpaolo, SWIFT proved it could settle tokenised bonds across fragmented blockchains using existing banking infrastructure. [RELEASE]

The message: SWIFT’s rails are not outdated; they are being upgraded.

What happened

Swift, in collaboration with partners including BNP Paribas (custodian and paying agent), Société Générale – FORGE (DLT1 provider and issuer), and Intesa Sanpaolo (secondary custodian), has completed a series of trials for orchestrating tokenised bond transactions and cross-border payments.

The initiative demonstrated seamless delivery-versus-payment (DvP)2 settlement and lifecycle management across multiple blockchains and traditional systems, utilising ISO 20022 standards. Swift is now integrating a blockchain-based shared ledger into its infrastructure to enable real-time, 24/7 global transaction execution.