ICICI and Axis bank have become the first Indian banks to join global payment network Swift's cross-border payment innovation initiative. Swift's initiative already involves 70 other banks worldwide.
PTI reports that in the first phase, the project will focus on business-to-business payments. Same day fund transfer, end-to-end tracking of transactions and transparency in handling fees are some of the outcomes the Swift initiative aims to accomplish.
The initiative mainly helps corporate businesses enhance their foreign operations because of better efficiency in payments services offered by financial institutions located in various countries. This project is also expected to enhance supplier-vendor relationship.
"By being the first domestic banks to join the global payments innovation initiative, ICICI Bank and Axis Bank reiterate their commitment to offering greater speed, transparency and predictability to their clients when it comes to cross-border payments," Kiran Shetty, head of India and Subcontinent, Swift has said.
Ajay Gupta, Senior General Manager at ICICI said the tie-up will better financial services availed by their corporate clients.
"The global payments innovation initiative is one such initiative where we believe that our clients will immensely benefit with same day credit, increased visibility and certainty of charges. This will enhance the payments product in the correspondent banking portfolio thereby enhancing our value proposition to corporate clients," Gupta said.
Swift, based in Belgium, is a member-owned cooperative that provides a secure messaging system to financial institutions across the world. Currently, the network has more than 11,000 financial institutions (including banks) across the world, according to the community website.
The network does not facilitate financial transactions but issues payment orders which can be settled through 'correspondent account' the institutions may have with one another.
