UK-based Ebury has become the first fintech to be a full and active participant on gpi, Swift's cross-border payments scheme.
The move has been hailed as "an important milestone" by Swift which is looking to encourage new non-bank entrants to join the traditional banks already on the service.
The payments project was launched in January 2017 with the objective of reducing the time for cross-border payments settlement. Swift claims that it now processes half of its gpi payments within 30 minutes and almost 100% of payments within 24 hours.
The speed of settlement is something that Swift claims will be especially helpful in its efforts to recruit more non-bank participants from the corporate and fintech sectors.
"Its clear that the benefits of gpi are being recognised not just by the global banks and corporates who are already uisng it, but now fintechs," said Swift's head of banking Harry Newman. "Ebury were early to spot the enormous advantage that gpi can bring to customers and have acted fast in completing testing and going live."
Ebury, which provides corporate banking services to SMEs, was also the first fintech to directly particpate in the Faster Payments Scheme in the UK back in March