The cross-border payments industry and the correspondent banking network that underpins it stand at a crossroads.
For far too long, the service that corporates and consumers have received from their banks when transferring money internationally has been slow, expensive and opaque: quite at odds with their new expectations and digital experience in buying goods and services.
Late in the day, Swift, the membership organization of 11,000 banks, is urgently pressing ahead with its global payments innovation (gpi) to address all this.
However, by falling behind, the banking industry has already encouraged abundant competition from technology companies aiming right at the heart of their core business.
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Nicolas Cary, |
In 2015, Nicolas Cary, co-founder of Blockchain, the most popular bitcoin wallet provider then with 3.7 million users, put the banks on notice of the danger they were in.
“If I want to send value anywhere in the world, I can now do it instantly, like sending an email,” he said. “Our vision is to completely re-imagine how the world transacts.”
He reminded the banks why millions of their customers were looking to other providers by pointing to the chair he was sitting on at a Misys Forum in London.
