SWIFT today published a paper detailing its vision for an enhanced capital markets platform as part of the organisation’s strategy. SWIFT is transforming its platform to meet industry demands for a collaborative post-trade utility that will enable smarter securities processing and feature expanded capabilities.
Institutions operating in global capital markets face the growing challenge of meeting the demands of customers for more efficient securities processing while contending with rising costs, increased regulatory burdens and heightened competition. The paper considers how numerous post-trade solutions have attempted to address these challenges in the past with limited success and outlines why SWIFT believes that a single, collaborative platform will revolutionise how capital markets firms service their customers and will drive efficiency across the industry as a whole.
The paper explains why the benefits of a single platform that functions at scale across markets are well-aligned with the needs of capital markets. Securities transactions will settle with greater visibility, new revenue generating opportunities will emerge, higher quality data will be made available, and the collaborative nature of the platform will spur innovation.
As part of its strategy, SWIFT is leveraging its unique position as a global cooperative to make such a platform a reality. The enhanced SWIFT platform will use APIs to provide a set of common processing services that institutions have typically invested in individually, saving the industry time and enabling smarter, securities transactions. This transformation is already in progress and SWIFT is particularly focused on delivering end-to-end transaction tracking for securities settlement transactions and, real-time transactional information to support inventory management and visibility on holdings while exploring the potential of tokenised assets.
David Watson, Chief Strategy Officer at SWIFT, said: “Facing unprecedented disruption that has only been exacerbated by the pandemic, capital markets participants the world over require a collaborative, industry-wide solution to meet the evolving needs of customers. At SWIFT, we are uniquely positioned to deliver a fundamental transformation in securities processing through an enhanced platform that works for all. As part of our strategy, we will leverage the strength of our community and track record of responsible innovation to reduce industry costs and facilitate seamless securities transactions.”
To view the report, visit: https://www.swift.com/resource/securities-platform-vision
