The Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications (SWIFT), an interbank payments network provider, has dismissed cryptocurrencies as being “useless and unstable.”

An FXStreet report published on Sept. 10 cites unnamed SWIFT representatives at a London briefing earlier this week, who reportedly claimed that:

“They go down in value like a yoyo, they’re useless and unstable. And even if crypto companies do make it stable, it’s still a basket of currencies.”

SWIFT: unruffled by competitors such as Ripple

At the briefing, representatives reportedly conceded the shortcomings of the SWIFT network itself, which connects roughly 11,000 banks and financial institutions worldwide.

While it processes millions of payments daily, it is held back by significant cost and time efficiencies.

“If you want to send a payment [with SWIFT] from Australia to China after midday, you instantly have a 12-hour delay because of opening hours,” representatives reportedly admitted.

Yet this recognition did not reportedly extend to a sense of the potential threat posed by blockchain-powered alternatives such as Ripple’s xRapid solution, which uses the XRP token to facilitate the instant settlement of money sent in one currency into a destination currency.

SWIFT believes Libra could have short-term impact

One potential rival that SWIFT does recognize is Facebook’s planned stablecoin Libra, which would be integrated into the social media giant’s three wholly owned apps — WhatsApp, Messenger and Instagram — bringing its potential exposure to a combined 2.7 billion users each month.

SWIFT representatives said they anticipated its impact only be short-term.

As reported, Facebook’s ambitious cryptocurrency plans have sparked a range of concerns not only from rivals in the commercial sector, but from citizens, crypto industry figures, governments, regulators and central bankers worldwide.