Overview
- SWIFT, which activated the shared ledger on Thursday, July 9, 2026, has begun a controlled live pilot with 17 global banks that are preparing to test round‑the‑clock transfers of bank‑issued tokenized deposits.
- The ledger was designed and built in roughly nine months and uses an Ethereum‑compatible architecture as a centralized orchestration layer that connects banks’ own ledgers while leaving final fiat settlement on existing payment rails.
- Participating banks include major global institutions such as Citi, HSBC, UBS, BNY Mellon and Wells Fargo, which will use the system to move customer funds overnight and on weekends before completing settlement through legacy systems.
- Analysts warn the pilot leaves open major questions about scalability to thousands of banks, liquidity fragmentation between different banks’ tokens, and unresolved regulatory issues such as reserve treatment, deposit insurance, and failure‑scenario rules.
- If the platform scales, corporates and treasurers could gain faster liquidity and 24/7 payment options without leaving regulated banking relationships, but wider adoption will depend on interoperability, governance and clearer regulatory guidance.