Swift, an international payment company, has announced its plans to provide instant payment service for small and medium-sized-enterprises (SMEs).

The move comes as a challenge to leading payment companies such as Visa, Mastercard as well as fintech startups such as Ripple.

The company said:

“At its March 2020 meeting, the SWIFT Board and Executive endorsed ambitious plans for SWIFT to support financial institutions’ payments and securities businesses and make the SWIFT platform richer, smarter and faster. SWIFT will enable transactions to move instantly and frictionless from account-to-account anywhere in the world across the end-to-end payments chain.”

Andy Schmidt, vice president of the consulting firm CGI, said this is the most important declaration from Swift since the 1970s.

“Perhaps driven by the fact that as Swift is owned by the banks, the change of direction might enable the banks to take control of the interconnectivity of new instant payments schemes which are either live or rolling out all over the world.”

Ripple focuses on SMEs to generate robust earnings, using its payment messaging system as well as its cryptocurrency XRP.

Last year, Ripple said SMEs are the dynamic driver for the cross-border payments.

SME cross-border payments revenues in emerging markets have reached as much as $100-150 billion annually, according to Ripple’s analysis with data from FXC Intelligence and Kapronasia.”

“The opportunity in SME B2B cross-border payments is especially strong in emerging markets. About two-thirds of these payments are from developed countries, while profitability and growth is twice as high in emerging markets as in the developed world.

It seems that Swift will continue developing its new strategy for the next few years. The company aims to start implementing the payment expansion in late 2022.

SCB offers new instant payment app using Ripple

Siam Commercial Bank of Thailand (SCB) earlier announced it is building a new app that uses payment technology from Ripple to allow tourists to pay for goods and services without the need to currencies exchange.

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