BBVA participates in a Swift initiative that studies interconnecting payment systems between individuals across four continents to send money abroad using a verified phone number or email address, without entering the recipient's account number.
BBVA has joined an initiative led by Swift that will explore how to make sending money to individuals in other countries as simple as doing so within one's own country, according to bbva.com. The aim is for users not to have to know or enter the recipient's banking details, thus bringing the experience of sending money abroad closer to that of a domestic payment.
The initiative brings together banks, payment service providers, technology companies, and domestic person-to-person payment systems from four continents to explore making international payments using only everyday identifiers, such as a phone number or an email address.
The bank has already been participating since this summer in Swift's new global retail payments scheme, which allows for faster, more transparent, and predictable cross-border transfers. Now it takes a further step with this initiative focused on person-to-person payments.
“Our ambition is clear: international payments should be as easy and intuitive as domestic payments. Achieving this requires the sector to work together, connecting infrastructures and removing complexity for customers. We are pleased to participate in this initiative and contribute to exploring new ways to make cross-border payments simpler, faster, and more accessible,” says Raouf Soussi, Head of Payment Strategy in BBVA's Corporate and Institutional Banking.
Systems like Bizum in Spain, PayID in Australia, Pix in Brazil, or UPI in India have simplified person-to-person payments in their markets. The initiative is now studying how to interconnect these types of infrastructures through Swift's global network to transfer part of that experience to the international arena.
The key lies in how to connect these systems. To this end, Swift proposes using its global network, which connects 12,500 financial institutions in 200 markets, to facilitate interoperability without the need to establish bilateral connections between different national infrastructures.
“Now we want to take it a step further, eliminating the complexity of having to enter account numbers to make a payment and allowing users to send money to family and friends using verified phone numbers or email addresses they already know,” says Juan Martínez, Global Director of Payments and Platforms at Swift.
The pilot builds on advancements made in recent years to make cross-border payments faster and more transparent. According to Swift, 75% of international payments already reach the destination bank in less than ten minutes.
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