Seventy correspondent banks have so far registered to move their bulk payment processing from costly proprietary messaging formats to SwiftNet FileAct. The system is used primarily by banks for cross-border salaries and pension payments, whilst some also use it for their domestic Step2 procedure.

The Euro Banking Association (EBA) Step2 service, a Pan-European ACH, is the first implementation of SwiftNet FileAct and Swift's Bulk Payments standard in the ACH market.

A number of domestic ACHs have expressed interest in utilising SwiftNet FileAct and are presently in discussion with the bank-owned network, says senior product manager André Casterman.

"There are primarily two types of ACHs we are talking to," he says. "The first are those ACHs that wish to build or renew their ACH communications infrastructure. The second set comprises those who wish to extend their proposition to participating banks, offering members another way of connecting to the ACH."

It is in this second category where immediate interest is being shown, adds Casterman. BGC, the Swedish ACH, for example, is planning to implement SwiftNet FileAct for its member institutions by 2004.

Speaking at Finextra's retail banking show Finexpo in London last week, Tim Lamberstock, technology strategy manager at Bacs, also announced plans to use Swift's IP-based network for bulk payment transfers. Further details are expected to be forthcoming at Swift's annual banking conference and exhibition Sibos in Singapore later this month.

News of the deals comes as Swift announces that FIN message traffic peaked at an all-time high of 9,685,754 million messages on 30 September 2003. More than one million of the messages were sent over the next-generation SwiftNet network.

This is an 8.82% increase from the last peak day reached on 1 July 2003 with 8,900,991 messages. FIN traffic year-to-date is ahead of plan with 1.5 billion messages, representing a 12.4% growth in volume.

The drivers for this traffic increase are payments reporting messages (MT 100 + 103 customer credit transfer and associated copy messages, MT 202 financial institution transfer) and treasury messages, particularly MT 300 foreign exchange confirmation.

Messages sent via Swift per day have tripled in volume over the past seven years, up from three million in 1996 to nine million messages per day in 2003.