Mashreq first bank in Mideast to join SWIFT gpi

Dubai / Emirates Business

SWIFT announces on Sunday that Mashreq Bank has signed up for its global payments innovation (gpi) service, to become the first bank in the Middle East to join this international initiative. The bank will be joining forces with 100 leading banks globally. SWIFT gpi dramatically improves the customer experience in cross-border payments by increasing the speed, transparency and end-to-end tracking of transactions.
Now live, the first phase of SWIFT gpi focuses on business-to-business payments, helping corporates grow their international business, improve supplier relationships and achieve greater treasury efficiencies.
Sandeep Chouhan, Group Head of Operations and Technology, Mashreq Bank said: “We are proud to be the first bank in our region to join SWIFT gpi. We are always keen to be at the forefront of innovation in our industry and strive to offer our customers the best services available. With our customers in the region operating across multiple trade corridors, we look forward to working with SWIFT to deliver a faster, more transparent and more traceable cross-border payments offering.”
Jan- Willem Sudmann, Group Head International Banking, Mashreq Bank said: “Mashreq is happy to be part of SWIFT gpi, which is one among the many initiatives undertaken by SWIFT to facilitate change in the correspondent banking business by bringing in more transparency and speed. As the first bank in the region to join this program, Mashreq has always been a pioneer in UAE in delivering innovative solutions that meets the dynamic and holistic needs of its customers. Mashreq’s digitization roadmap is closely aligned with SWIFT gpi program and we look forward to work with SWIFT to make this a success”.
Alain Raes, Chief Executive of Europe, Middle East & Africa and Asia Pacific, SWIFT added: “We are delighted that Mashreq Bank has joined the SWIFT gpi service and hope that many more banks across the Middle East will follow its lead. SWIFT gpi enables member banks to significantly improve the cross-border payment experience for their customers. The banks that are live on SWIFT gpi have already demonstrated that it adds significant value and we look forward to working with Mashreq Bank as it prepares to go live with the service later this year.”
As part of SWIFT gpi, the gpi Tracker allows banks to provide corporate treasurers with a real-time, end-to-end view on the status of their payments, including confirmations when payments have been credited to beneficiaries’ accounts. With SWIFT gpi, treasurers now also have certainty that remittance information, such as invoice references, are transferred unaltered to the beneficiary. In addition, SWIFT will soon introduce the gpi Observer, a quality assurance tool that monitors participants’ adherence to the gpi business rules.
Meanwhile SWIFT is already designing a second phase of gpi services which will see the digital transformation of cross-border payments. These will include a service to immediately stop and recall a payment, a service enabling the transfer of rich payment data, and an international payments assistant service to help corporates initiate error-free cross-border payment instructions.
Finally, SWIFT gpi is exploring distributed ledger technology for real-time nostro account reconciliation. Six leading global transaction banks kicked off a Proof of Concept (PoC) in April 2017 and a further 20 banks are set to join the validation phase at a later stage. The results of the PoC will be presented at Sibos in Toronto in October.