IBM has integrated its Digital Asset Haven platform with Swift's newly built Shared Ledger, a blockchain-based network designed to let banks transfer tokenised deposits without abandoning the messaging standards they already rely on. For European banks weighing how far to embrace tokenisation, the move offers a way to test blockchain-based settlement rails while staying anchored to established infrastructure.
At the centre of the integration is a new IBM Messaging Adapter, which translates payment instructions into transactions on Swift's blockchain ledger. Institutions using Digital Asset Haven can continue sending ISO 20022 messages, the format long established in international payments, while the adapter handles the conversion needed to execute transfers on the new network.
The result, according to the companies, is that banks can move tokenised deposits between participating institutions around the clock. Final settlement, however, still runs through existing infrastructure such as Real-Time Gross Settlement networks. Swift remains a financial messaging network in this setup rather than a replacement for traditional settlement systems.
A rapid build
Swift developed the Shared Ledger together with more than 40 financial institutions and says the project moved from concept to an active testing phase in less than nine months. A first group of 17 institutions is now testing transactions involving tokenised bank deposits on the network.
IBM has not named which institutions have already carried out concrete transactions through its platform. The company points instead to the scale of Swift's existing footprint: the network connects 12,500 financial institutions across more than 200 markets worldwide, giving the Shared Ledger a broad base to draw participants from as testing expands.
Modernisation pressure
IBM cites data from J.P. Morgan Payments indicating that 93 percent of financial institutions are currently modernising their payment infrastructure, a figure the company uses to frame the Swift integration as part of a broader industry shift rather than an isolated pilot.
For now, the arrangement keeps the core of cross-border settlement unchanged. Tokenised deposits can circulate continuously between banks on the Shared Ledger, but the final movement of funds still depends on the RTGS systems that underpin today's payment networks. The integration is best understood as an attempt to layer blockchain-based transfer capability on top of infrastructure banks already trust, without requiring them to give up ISO 20022 messaging in the process.
