The announcement of a new Swift access model for corporates will prove helpful to larger companies but smaller players will need to look for alternatives. Technology providers are on hand to assist but the challenges of cost, standardisation and awareness are still proving a challenge.
For the past 20 years, the issue of corporate access to Swift has been hotly debated. Banks have feared – quite reasonably, it could be argued – that if their customers had access to the international payments system then banks themselves could become disintermediated in the payments business.
