SWIFT

Gottfried Leibbrandt will step down next June from Swift, the cross-border payment system, after spending seven years leading a key piece of global economic infrastructure through crises from hacking to sanctions on Iranian banks.

Fifteen major banks will test Swift's pre-validation service for Global Payments Innovation transactions, focusing on quickly identifying and eliminating errors or omissions in payment messages.

A former Lloyds Banking Group executive is joining financial messaging service provider Swift as its head of U.K., Ireland and Nordics operations.

Ripple Labs Inc., the blockchain startup whose digital money is often used as a proxy for other cryptocurrency payments, is gaining new customers because financial firms are seeking faster, more up-to-date technology than the Swift banking network, Chief Executive Officer Brad Garlinghouse said.

The Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication says a pre-validation system it will launch soon to catch payment message mistakes prior to dispatch should increase the number of payments reaching beneficiaries in less than 30 seconds.

About half of Swift Global Payments Innovation transactions are credited within 30 minutes and many within seconds.

The Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, or Swift, has named David Scola, a former Barclays exec, its new head of North America operations.

The fact remains that the vast majority of international payments are still done via banks and through the correspondent (SWIFT) network, writes Rosie Faulkner, vice president and money laundering reporting officer at Earthport.

Citigroup is using tracking and transparency to push back against rivals that paint traditional bank-powered international payments as a costly, time-consuming relic.

The OCC finds widespread problems in bank retail sales practices; Ripple and Swift competition for payments pits technology against convention.