How SWIFT Go Helps SMBs Make Faster Cross-border Payments

There’s good news for small and medium-sized business owners. Now you can transfer funds of up to 1000 USD, EUR, or GBP around the world, straight from your bank account. This means all your low-value cross-border payments just became faster and simpler with SWIFT international payments. And no extra fees or hidden costs. As a small or medium-sized business owner, you know what this means. After all, nobody likes waiting for a payment to arrive. Or being charged unexpected processing fees.

In 2021, SWIFT launched the SWIFT GO service, to make it easier for small and medium-sized businesses to move money across borders while having a clear upfront visibility on all fees and charges. With the new service, SMBs can send low-value cross-border payments anywhere in the world, directly from their bank accounts, in a fast, predictable, and highly secure way, and at competitive prices.

Founded in 1973, SWIFT today serves as the main interbank messaging service for banks and financial institutions around the world. It works with 11,000 member institutions, facilitating $150 trillion in transactions per year. Over the years, SWIFT has taken several measures to keep pace with an increasingly digital world and make payments more seamless, cheaper, and faster.

What is SWIFT Go?

SWIFT Go is a new service standard for low-value cross-border payments of up to 1000 USD, EUR, or GBP. More currencies are expected to be added as more banks join in. Currently, 250+ banks in over 70+ countries use the service. Using the service, SMBs can send low-value cross-border payments anywhere in the world, directly from their bank accounts, in a fast, predictable, and highly secure way, and at competitive prices.
SWIFT Go payments are:

1. Lightning fast: funds are transferred in real-time
2. Total transparency: All processing fees and FX are calculated upfront. What you send is what the recipient gets. No extra charges or deductions.
3. Better User Experience: an easy and intuitive payment experience for small business owners.
4. Simpler claims process: streamlined process leading to lower back-end costs to reconcile payments.

SWIFT launched the service to bring in “tighter service level agreements between institutions and pre-validation of data” to enable faster international payments, with upfront fee visibility. Small businesses usually get affected by surprise hidden fees, and they often lack the negotiating power of larger companies to get a bargain on cross-border payment fees. The new service seeks to address these issues.

Why SWIFT Go?

With this new service, banks can offer a seamless payments experience for low value transactions that are initiated by SMBs to pay their overseas suppliers, employees, or vendors. P2P transfers across borders are also possible using this service. SWIFT Go uses pre-validation of data and tighter service level agreements between institutions to provide faster cross-border payments with upfront visibility on processing times and costs.
SWIFT Go is based on the following key pillars:

• Speed: Tighter service levels between banks increase speed. A single payment format increases straight-through processing. Pre-validation of payments remove frictions that cause delays.
• Predictability: The amount, time, fees, and FX rate of a payment are known in advance. The sender and receiver of a payment can track its status in real-time.
• Easy to use: The user experience is simple and streamlined, as data needs are known upfront. Strict network validation makes it easier to initiate and process SWIFT Go payments
• Competitive pricing: Processing fees are fully transparent because they are agreed upon between banks upfront. Simpler processing further reduces processing costs.
• Security: Payments are secured using the strong security protocols of the SWIFT network. Hence, users have the peace of mind that their payments are safe.

How does SWIFT Go Work?

The SWIFT Go service runs on the high-speed rails of SWIFT gpi. This significantly improves the speed and predictability of high-value payments. The service marks another milestone in SWIFT’s strategy to enable instant and frictionless transactions from one account to another, across SWIFT’s network that connects more than 11,000 institutions, and 4 billion accounts across 200 countries worldwide.

With Swift Go, businesses can send up to 10,000 USD, GBP, or EUR around the world. Payments can also be made in other currencies – as more banks join the community, the list of supported currencies grows. No hidden fees – By establishing all routing costs with your counterparties upfront, your customers always know exactly how much their transfer will cost before they hit send.

How can Novalnet help?

A global PSP like Novalnet can advise you on what steps you need to take and help you address your payments-related challenges. We are a trusted partner for global brands. Our state-of-the-art technologies – from instant payment plug-ins to AI-based risk management tools – have been helping Europe’s leading brands solve complex payment challenges and delight customers. Reach out to us today to know more.

Jose Augustine

Jose Augustine is the Chief Business Development Officer at Novalnet with extensive experience in European payment industry and a knowledge powerhouse.