Swift to pilot digital asset and currency trading in 2025

Swift will begin live trials for digital asset and currency trading in 2025, attracting banks from North America, Europe and Asia to participate, an important step towards real-world applications. By leveraging existing networks, Swift aims to merge digital and traditional assets and solve the problem of platform disconnection. The trials build on successful blockchain experiments and seek to interconnect public, private networks and central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), with the potential to transform global transactions.

Swift to launch digital asset trading trials in 2025

Swift announced on October 3 that it will begin live trials for digital asset and currency trading in 2025. Banks from North America, Europe and Asia will participate, using the Swift network to pilot the settlement of digital assets and currencies, transitioning from experiments to real-world applications. The company elaborated:

Next year we will work with the community to pilot an advanced version of our infrastructure, which for the first time has the ability to coordinate digital asset and currency transactions between networks.

These trials will allow global financial institutions to trade digital and traditional assets on different platforms through existing Swift connections. According to Swift Chief Innovation Officer Tom Zschach, the goal is to demonstrate a global network that can securely support digital and fiat currency transactions.

“For digital assets and currencies to succeed globally, it is critical that they can coexist seamlessly with traditional forms of money,” Zschach explained. The trials will build on successful experiments demonstrating Swift’s ability to connect public and private blockchains and interconnect central bank digital currencies (CBDCs).

The trials are expected to address the challenge of disjointed digital platforms, or “digital silos,” hindering the adoption of digital assets. With 134 countries exploring CBDCs and tokenized assets having the potential to reach $30 trillion by 2034, the trials will focus on ensuring global connectivity. Swift’s infrastructure will facilitate cross-border transactions between digital and fiat currencies. Zschach highlighted the importance of this advancement, stating:

This move will mark an important milestone towards our ultimate vision of providing financial institutions with a single access to multiple digital asset classes and currencies.