Swift, the global bank messaging network, is to begin trials for digital currency and tokenised asset transactions with a pilot the cooperative says will help integrate new technologies into the wider financial system. 

Beginning next year, banks across North America, Europe and Asia will use Swift connectivity to conduct live trials of digital asset and currency transactions, which the organisation says marks an advancement from previous experiments. 

The new trials will explore how Swift can provide its community of financial institutions with a single window of access to multiple digital asset classes and currencies, with initial use cases focussing on payments, FX, securities, and trade.

Although banks and other financial institutions have explored digital asset technology for several years, Swift said that the rapid growth of unconnected platforms and technologies in the sector has led to a fragmented landscape, creating a web of ‘digital islands’ that present barriers to global adoption of digital financial assets.

A major goal behind the initiative is to link these disparate networks with each other, as well as with existing fiat currencies, allowing transactions of digital assets and currencies alongside traditional forms of value, using existing infrastructure.  

Last month, Swift was named as a participant in Project Agorá, a Bank for International Settlements-led project exploring project testing the desirability, feasibility and viability of a multi-currency unified ledger for cross-border payments.

Tom Zschach, chief innovation officer at Swift, said: “For digital assets and currencies to succeed on a global scale, it’s critical that they can seamlessly coexist with traditional forms of money. 

“As new forms of value emerge, our intention is to continue offering our community the ability to seamlessly make and track transactions of all kinds of assets – using the same secure and resilient infrastructure that is integral to their operations today.” 

Swift has been pushing hard for the development of digital assets and shared ledger technology, looking to firmly establish its own position as the leading platform for such transactions. 

Last year, the Swift network reported that it had been conducting experiments into the transfer of tokenised assets across multiple public and private blockchains, and could demonstrate that its own infrastructure was ideal for providing a single point of access to multiple networks that could ‘significantly reduce operational challenges and investment’.

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Adoption of digital assets and currencies is continuing to grow worldwide, with the Atlantic Council reporting that the latest industry figures show 134 countries are currently exploring central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), and that the tokenised asset market is projected to reach $16 trillion (£12.2 trillion) by 2030.

Under the previous government, the UK set a taskforce to investigate the development of a ‘Britcoin’, a state-backed digital pound, however despite Conservative’s efforts the Treasury and Bank of England expressed doubts that such a digital currency would be ready even within the next decade.