
After 70 years, why did SWIFT finally take the chain?
For decades, SWIFT @swiftCommunity SWIFT has been a central and unshakeable hub in the field of international cross-border payments. Like the central nervous system of the traditional financial world, SWIFT connects tens of thousands of financial institutions around the globe and dominates the communication channels for cross-border financial flows. How can SWIFT be understood as an artery for the settlement of funds? Take one example. After Iran was excluded from SWIFT in 2018, the gas and gas export clearance routes were compressed, export revenues were shrunk significantly, the local currency rials were weakened rapidly, foreign exchange markets were disrupted, and the dollar rials jumped from about 40,000 to about 170,000. But for a long time, SWIFT has been very cautious about block-chain technology: it is better to improve its own system than to slow down. Today, however, the wind has changed dramatically: at the Sibos Congress in 2025, SWIFT announced that it would extend its infrastructure to the block chain environment and work with more than 30 banks around the world to develop shared books based on block chains. What has led to a change in the attitude of this traditional, 70-year-old, cross-border payer who is finally willing to take this step up the chain? SWIFT's past hesitation over the block chain is partly due to technical factors. As early as 2017, SWIFT tried to validate the concept of block chain payments (PoC) based on Hyperledger Fabric, when it was concluded that the technology was still not mature enough to meet the stringent requirements of real-time payments between banks worldwide.







