Swift, in collaboration with BNP Paribas Securities Services, Intesa Sanpaolo and Societe Generale – FORGE, recently completed a landmark digital asset interoperability trial, marking an important step in our efforts to drive a new era of global interoperability. The trial enabled the seamless exchange and settlement of tokenised bonds, while supporting payments in both fiat and digital currencies.
The initiative focused on key processes such as delivery-versus-payment (DvP) settlement, interest payouts and redemption of tokenised bonds with roles including paying agent, custodian and registrar. This marks the first time we have demonstrated our ability to orchestrate tokenised asset transactions as a single, coordinated process across both blockchain platforms and traditional systems.
This work is part of a broader series of digital asset and currency use cases we’ve trialled: bridging tokenised assets with existing payment systems with UBS Asset Management and Chainlink; settling payments between fiat and digital currencies with Citi; exchanging digital asset transactions via a commercial bank account with Northern Trust and the Reserve Bank of Australia; and enabling ISO 20022-based blockchain interoperability on our network with HSBC and Ant International.
With this series of successful trials now completed, we’re now focused on adding a blockchain-based ledger to our technology infrastructure. The ledger will initially focus on enabling real-time, 24/7 cross-border payments, designed in collaboration with over 30 banks worldwide.
In a multi-modal world where new assets and platforms are proliferating, we’re working alongside our community to drive a new era of interoperability. Our aim is to seamlessly interconnect emerging networks and new forms of value, delivering a best-in-class experience aligned with the G20 objectives for cross-border payments.
This is all built on a critical foundation of trust and operational excellence, enabling instant, frictionless transactions across the global financial ecosystem.
A fragmented digital asset environment
The financial industry is rapidly embracing tokenisation, with applications ranging from tokenised bonds and equities to commodities, real estate and beyond. However, this innovation is introducing fragmentation – multiple blockchains, proprietary protocols, and isolated settlement systems – as ‘digital islands’ proliferate around the world creating inefficiencies, trapping liquidity and limiting scale.
Our approach looks to address this challenge head-on.
Acting as a neutral orchestrator, Swift aims to connect existing rails with emerging digital ecosystems, ensuring institutions can transact securely and efficiently across networks. By doing so, we can unlock scalability by leveraging both ISO 20022 and ISO 15022 standards, as well as agreed market practices.
Demonstrating the seamless settlement of tokenised bonds
In this trial, we worked in close collaboration with SG-Forge, Societe Generale’s blockchain-focused subsidiary, harnessing their digital asset and EURCV stablecoin to enable DvP settlement for tokenised bonds using both fiat currency and stablecoins, as well as supporting key lifecycle events such as interest pay-outs and redemption.
During the trial, BNP Paribas Securities Services and Intesa Sanpaolo both acted as paying agents and custodians for the tokenised bond transactions. By successfully completing all settlement flows over Swift, the trial proved that tokenised bonds can leverage existing infrastructure – shielding financial institutions from the blockchain complexity and accelerating digital asset market adoption.
This initiative also showcased the integration of ISO 20022 messaging standards with blockchain-native platforms, facilitating secure and compliant workflows for tokenised bonds.
“This milestone demonstrates how collaboration and interoperability will shape the future of capital markets. By proving that Swift can orchestrate multi-platform tokenised asset transactions, we’re paving the way for our members to adopt digital asset with confidence, and at scale. It’s about creating a bridge between traditional finance and emerging technologies.” said Thomas Dugauquier, Tokenised Assets Product Lead at Swift.
Proposing new market practice guidelines for digital assets
To ensure innovation in digital assets does not come at the expense of systemic stability – a principle central to our mission – we have submitted a proposal for new market practice guidelines to the Securities Market Practice Group (SMPG).
Developed as part of this trial, the proposal aims to embed best practices into established workflows, reducing onboarding complexity and supporting secure, efficient and scalable adoption of digital assets by financial institutions.
Enabling a digital future
Our digital asset interoperability trials – alongside the numerous other pilot initiatives we have conducted in recent years – have clearly proven that Swift can securely enable tokenised asset and currency transactions across platforms using our existing infrastructure.
Now we’re building on the learnings to add a highly scalable blockchain-based shared ledger to our trusted environment that will extend the Swift platform into a digital space – combining resilience, compliance and scalability with the flexibility of emerging ecosystems.
Adding a ledger to Swift’s infrastructure will extend our capabilities, complementing the interoperability we offer today via financial messaging and APIs. It will provide a shared execution layer that aligns actions, timing and outcomes between all parties involved in a digital transaction – turning point-to-point connectivity into execution assurance.
Shaping the future
The Swift ledger will be the foundation for the next phase of digital finance. Designed with our global community, it will create a trusted, shared environment where institutions can transact seamlessly across networks, assets and currencies.
Without this shared infrastructure, the coordinated execution of digital asset and currency transactions across institutions and platforms simply is not possible. This is how together we’re shaping the future of finance.
Source: Swift
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