Swift-Indian Banks’ Association focused on modernising payments
Standard Chartered has processed a remittance payment under a new retail payments scheme from Swift. In a world-first, Westpac (Australia) sent a transaction to India via Standard Chartered via this scheme. Leveraging its advanced capabilities in India, Standard Chartered enabled near real-time credit to the beneficiary bank, demonstrating a major leap in the country’s payment ecosystem.
“This transaction was completed in 37 seconds end-to-end. This reiterates the Bank’s ability to complete an end-to-end transaction with any participating bank in India in record time using Swift rails,” said the London and Hong Kong-listed banking group.
“As well as the fastest possible settlement time, Swift’s retail payments scheme delivers benefits to both senders and receivers of international payments, including end-to-end transparency so that a payment can be tracked, upfront certainty of cost with no hidden fees, and no surprise FX deductions, so that the amount that is sent is exactly what lands in the beneficiary’s bank account,” said in a release on 2 July from Mumbai.
At an event hosted by Swift in collaboration with the Indian Banks’ Association, focused on modernising payments, P D Singh, CEO, India & South Asia, Standard Chartered, was felicitated to mark the achievement as the first bank in India to process a payment under the Swift scheme.
P D Singh, CEO, India & South Asia, at Standard Chartered, said, “Our cross-border and network capabilities have been the cornerstones of the Bank’s sharp focus across key markets including India. It is indeed a moment of great pride for Standard Chartered, India, to be globally the first bank to process a payment within seconds under Swift’s retail payment scheme. We’re enabling people all over the world to send money back to India just as easily as they can send money domestically.”
“With this initiative they will get a truly best-in-class payments experience backed by the security of the banking ecosystem, and we’re delighted to be working with the industry to make it possible,” Singh added.
Kiran Shetty, Chief Executive of Swift India and South Asia, said, “This demonstrates the power of Swift’s cutting-edge capabilities; leveraging its existing global rails to drive real transformation in cross-border payments. For India, the world’s largest recipient of remittances, where they play a significant role in GDP, this evolution is particularly critical.”
“By enabling greater speed, transparency, and an improved customer experience, bringing cross-border payments closer to the simplicity of domestic UPI; Swift is helping unlock a new standard for remittances. Standard Chartered Bank’s initiative is a strong proof point that this shift is not only possible, but already underway in India, with the potential to redefine how remittances are experienced. It is also highly encouraging to see the continued regulatory push in India supporting this direction, further accelerating the move towards a faster, more transparent, and customer-centric payments ecosystem anchored by Swift,” Shetty added.
Standard Chartered Bank has been operating in India with a continuous presence of over 165 years making it one of the oldest foreign banks in the country offering a full range of services across business segments including Corporate and Investment Banking and Wealth and Retail Banking. The Bank has an extensive branch network covering major cities. Fiinews.com
