With the rise of RWA, is Swift taking control of the next generation of financial infrastructure?

introduction

In the past few years, when we discussed stablecoins, blockchain, and cross-border capital flows, the most frequently mentioned benchmark was SWIFT—a long-established infrastructure that has been operating since 1973 and carries cross-border communications for banks worldwide. Its mission is simple yet crucial: to enable banks in different countries to communicate with each other using the same messaging language, and to smoothly complete complex actions such as cross-border payments, custody, and clearing.

But times have changed.

Blockchain has transformed global money transfers from "T+2 days" to "seconds," and stablecoins have solved the most painful time lag in traditional clearing processes, leading to the emergence of more and more alternatives. However, a question begins to arise:

Is Swift being replaced, or will Swift evolve on its own?

This year's answer is very clear:

Swift is not only not going to be replaced, but also wants to become the "global router" for the next generation of RWA and digital finance.

1. Why do people say "stablecoins are fast, Swift is slow"?

The reason is simple:

• Traditional cross-border payments: 2–3 days
• On-chain stablecoins: funds arrive in seconds

The gap in experience over the past few years has been enough to make banks, institutions, and enterprises rethink the underlying logic of cross-border finance.

As a result, Swift had to speed things up—and the actions became increasingly frequent.

In 2023, it tested “cross-border CBDC interconnection” with more than 30 institutions, including central bank-level entities such as the Reserve Bank of Australia, the Bundesbank, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, and the Bank of Thailand.

In 2025, it directly ventured into the blockchain: Swift began testing on-chain messaging using Ethereum L2 Linea, with more than a dozen institutions, including BNP Paribas and BNY Mellon, participating.

From this moment on, Swift is no longer a "telegram system" between banks, but a core communication layer that directly enters on-chain scenarios.

II. Swift is moving from "cross-border payments" to Web3 and RWA

If the previous actions were merely "adapting to blockchain," then a new plan announced by Swift in 2024 truly made the financial world realize that its ambitions were far greater than we had imagined.

In September 2024, Swift announced the launch of a multi-ledger test, aiming to put traditional assets and tokenized assets into the same global network for processing.

This means:

• Securities buyers can make payments directly with a single click on Swift.
• Simultaneously complete the delivery of tokenized assets (DvP).
• Alternatively, cross-asset payment pairs (PvP) can be completed on-chain.
• Banks can use Swift to process transactions involving blockchain assets.

More importantly, they've focused their efforts directly on RWA. Why? Because the RWA market is projected to reach $30 trillion by 2034. Whoever becomes the infrastructure for cross-chain and cross-border asset flows will become the "operating system" of global finance.

Swift's judgment is very clear:

The biggest problem in the current RWA market is "insufficient interconnectivity." Digital assets are scattered across various chains, systems, and countries, forming isolated islands. What Swift aims to do is connect these islands.

III. ISO 20022: The most missing piece in the RWA development puzzle

To transform RWA from an "experiment" into a truly mainstream financial asset, Swift further promoted the global banks' switch to ISO 20022 this year.

So the question is: what exactly is ISO 20022?

In short:

It's a "unified data language" that global finance can understand. Whether it's payments, securities, clearing, custody, or trade finance, all critical information must be expressed according to this standard. Why is this so crucial for RWA? Because what RWA lacks most is a standardized language for off-chain information.

The key value of ISO 20022 for RWA can be explained in four sentences:

1. Information about real assets must be able to be expressed in a structured manner.

Trade documents, bond information, warehousing records, clearing data... all have standard fields in ISO 20022. Off-chain information, transformed into structured data, can be directly integrated into on-chain modules for automatic verification.

2. Due diligence, compliance, and risk control can run automatically.

ISO 20022 clearly identifies all participants, pathways, uses, and regulatory codes. This makes RWA not just a "tokenized record," but a truly regulated "digital financial asset."

3. A unified underlying language is needed for cross-chain and cross-border transactions.

With a common language, asset issuance, custody, taxation, and liquidation can all flow smoothly, enabling RWA to "circulate globally".

4. Future compliant on-chain settlements will all be based on ISO 20022.

European and American regulators are adopting ISO 20022 as a reporting standard. Want to enter the banking system? You must adopt this standard.

Any RWA that does not meet the standards is considered "non-compliant data" by institutions. It can be said that ISO 20022 is a mandatory course for RWA to enter the mainstream financial system.

Fourth, the sooner a company understands RWA, the sooner it can adapt to the next round of upgrades in global finance.

All these actions, taken together, point in the same direction: Swift is evolving into a universal infrastructure for global digital assets and traditional finance.

Stablecoins have pushed cross-border settlements from "T+2" to "seconds"; RWA has brought asset digitization to a global scale; and Swift is bringing both into a single global network. This means that the next wave of global financial infrastructure is rapidly taking shape.

For businesses, the sooner they understand RWA (Real-Time Wealth), the better they can adapt to change, seize the window of opportunity for digital transformation, and gain an advantage in the future competitive landscape. RWA is not just a trend; it is already a reality in global finance.