SWIFT Announces PoC Gateway With R3, but Remains Overall Hesitant About Blockchain

On Jan. 30, major global banking payments network SWIFT announced it plans to launch a proof-of-concept of a gateway - titled GPI Link - that will allow blockchain software firm R3 to connect to SWIFT's Global Payments Innovation payments from its platform.

The international banking network had asserted its dominance in the financial field long before the blockchain arrived: In the 1970's, SWIFT replaced the low-speed Telex system with a unified system of codes to name banks and describe transactions, transferring financial messages with greater speed and security.

PoC implies testing feasibility of a project before it is fully realized - which is why SWIFT limited the experiment to its DLT sandbox, instead of rolling out an untested product to the main network, upon which thousands of banks around the world rely on a daily basis.

In March, SWIFT revealed that it had finished the PoC test of blockchain.

SWIFT partners up with R3 to launch GPI Link, plans to expand further.

The PoC will reportedly support application programming interfaces, as well as SWIFT and ISO standards.

Still, R3 should be able to provide a jumpstart for SWIFT's expansion into the DLT field: Having just recently launched its Corda Network earlier this year, R3 has gathered over 300 partners from across multiple industries to collaborate on developing Corda, its open-source, Ethereum-based blockchain platform, as well as its business-oriented offshoot Corda Enterprise.

According to the press release, the results of the freshly announced PoC will be presented in London in September 2019.Ripple vs. SWIFT - who is least centralized?

"Decentralized systems I think over time are likely to win. I think that today that is not what Swift is. Swift today is a one-way messaging framework, it isn't a liquidity provider. When we think about an internet of value, it's a mixture of two-way messaging frameworks - moving to a real-time chatting protocol if you will - coupled with real-time liquidity."

Interestingly, on Jan. 30, R3 announced SWIFT GPI's integration with Corda Settler universal payments decentralized application, which, in turn, features XRP as the only cryptocurrency available for settlement there.