The Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (Swift) has begun migrating member banks to SwiftNet FIN, the messaging utility's new IP-based network.
Billed as one of the most important projects that Swift and its community have faced in recent years, the cut over began as planned on 15 August 2002 with live activation of the new network. The following day, two customers, one in Hong Kong and one in Belgium, exchanged the first live messages.
"This effectively marks the start of the SwiftNet migration," says Neal Campbell, SwiftNet FIN migration manager. "The remainder of 2002 will be spent bringing other early adopters onto SwiftNet FIN and preparing all other customers for migration in 2003 and 2004."
By end of August 2002, three additional early adopters are expected to have migrated to SwiftNet FIN, with Swift staff supporting each customer on-site. By end of September, a total of 14 early adopters are expected to be actively sending messages over the network in 'live' or 'test & training' mode.
Complete cut over for Swift's 7000+ member banks is expected to take two years. Initially, Swift plans to offer dedicated support to its largest members in order to help with the design, planning and implementation of SwiftNet. Other customers will be assigned to a country migration window.