The four lenders are the first in the UK to adopt Swift’s cross-border scheme, promising full-value delivery, upfront fees and near-instant transfers
Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds and NatWest have become the first UK banks to go live on Swift‘s cross-border consumer payments scheme, a rulebook layered over the network’s messaging infrastructure that guarantees full-value delivery, upfront pricing and end-to-end tracking on international retail transfers.
The four are among the first institutions worldwide to adopt the scheme, which Swift confirmed on 2 July now carries backing from more than 60 banks across 25 countries. UK customers will initially see the benefits when receiving money from Australia, China, India and Turkey, and when sending to Australia.
Swift's Digital Innovation: Future Payments | Ep.008
In today’s episode, Host Louis Thompsett is joined by Nick Kerigan, Managing Director and Head of Innovation at Swift, as the duo discuss the evolving landscape of global value transfer, focusing on how Swift is integrating blockchain technology and shared ledgers into its infrastructure to solve real-world payment friction.
A scheme, not a rail
The scheme is not a new payment rail. Its an enforceable set of network rules running on Swift’s existing messaging system and upgraded platform, standardising how banks quote fees and foreign exchange, guaranteeing the amount sent arrives without deductions, and handing payments to domestic instant-payment systems for the final leg.
In the UK, this routes outbound transfers through Faster Payments and GBP clearing so funds settle in near real time.
Sofie Petersen, Head of FIG Payments Products at Barclays, said near real-time settlement through domestic schemes, while preserving traceability, “unlocks significant value for clients” and the wider financial-institution community.
Swift announced the scheme in September 2025 and developed it with a voluntary coalition of early-adopter banks, targeting the G20’s 2027 goals for cheaper, faster and more transparent cross-border payments.
It reached minimum viable product in the first half of 2026 and began going live in March across corridors including Australia, Bangladesh, Canada, China, Germany, India, Pakistan, Spain, Thailand, the UK and the US.
Swift says 75% of payments over its network already reach the destination bank within 10 minutes, ahead of the G20 target. The sticking points are in the front-end fee quote and the final domestic leg between the payment leaving Swift’s network and hitting the recipient’s account. Those are the two areas the scheme is built to fix.
Why the UK went first
The UK is one of the world’s larger remittance senders, making it a logical early market.
Outflows reached £9.08bn in 2024, up 6.06% year on year, with India the single largest corridor, according to World Bank balance-of-payments data compiled by Remitly.
Average costs to send from the UK sat near 6% in early 2024 and run far higher for cash transfers, close to 9.6%, per the Migration Observatory – still above the UN‘s 3% Sustainable Development Goal target for 2030.
Fixing the fee and FX rate before a customer confirms looks to fill these remaining, and the guarantee of full-value delivery removes the intermediary “lifting fees” that have long eroded correspondent-banking transfers.
Lloyds said it is the first UK bank to remit outbound customer payments into the scheme for overseas delivery, adding send capability on top of the receive function the four banks already support.
Kim Verhaaf, Managing Director for Group Payments at Lloyds, said:
“Sending and receiving money from overseas should feel just as simple, fast, and secure as paying someone at home.”
Defending the correspondent-banking flow
The rollout lands as Swift’s dominance over cross-border flows faces sustained pressure from Visa Direct, Mastercard Move and stablecoin rails, all courting the correspondent-banking business the scheme is designed to defend.
Swift is building a blockchain-based shared ledger aimed at 24/7 real-time settlement across regulated forms of value. Around 50 banks are expected on the consumer scheme by the end of 2026, with further corridors to be activated as adoption increases.
