Swift has appointed National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) managing director and CEO Dilip Asbe as an independent director on its newly restructured 15-member supervisory board, as reported by Banking Standard. The appointment comes alongside senior executives from J.P. Morgan, HSBC, Bank of America, MUFG Bank and Standard Chartered who were also named to the board on Thursday. This strategic expansion represents Swift's move to a two-tier governance structure approved by shareholders at the annual general meeting in June 2026, with the new supervisory board holding its first meeting on October 6, 2026. The new structure replaces Swift's earlier single board of directors with a supervisory board and management board, supported by a 25-member Swift Council.
**Chainlink has launched a new integration that provides banks with direct access to Swift's blockchain-based ledger through its Runtime Environment, allowing financial institutions to connect their existing systems and signing infrastructure to the blockchain network. As reported by CoinDesk, this development builds on Swift's July announcement that 17 banks across six continents were preparing to pilot live transactions using tokenized deposits on the blockchain-based ledger. The integration enables banks to retain control of their transaction signing keys while the Chainlink Runtime Environment coordinates workflows between institutional systems and Swift's blockchain infrastructure.
Banks seeking to connect to Swift's new blockchain-based ledger must establish three critical infrastructure components before integration, according to Lamine Brahimi, co-founder and managing partner of custody and tokenization firm Taurus. As reported by CoinDesk, banks require their own permissioned ledger that interacts with Swift's, digital-asset wallet capabilities, and tokenization and smart-contract functionalities to integrate with the new network. This infrastructure serves as an orchestration layer rather than a replacement for banks' internal systems or existing settlement arrangements.
Several major financial institutions have successfully completed live transactions on Swift's blockchain ledger, demonstrating its operational capabilities. HSBC and Standard Chartered completed the first live interbank transaction using Swift's ledger in August, while DBS and Citi later executed a weekend cross-border dollar payment in minutes, significantly reducing settlement times from the traditional up to two business days. According to Swift, 17 banks were preparing live tokenized-deposit transactions as of July, signaling the network's readiness for broader adoption with major names including Citi, HSBC, UBS, Wells Fargo and Standard Chartered in the initial pilot group.
Swift's new blockchain initiative represents a significant modernization of the traditional financial messaging system that has dominated money movements since the 1970s. The network currently handles up to $1.5 quadrillion annually in money movements, maintaining its dominant position in cross-border financial transactions. As reported by CoinDesk, the ledger enables round-the-clock, cross-border transfers of tokenized deposits while final settlement continues through existing arrangements, providing banks with choice between traditional payment rails and tokenized deposits with 24/7 capabilities.
The infrastructure requirements have contributed to tokenized deposits remaining primarily an institutional product, with limited adoption beyond major global banks. According to Brahimi, tokenized deposits until Swift's announcement were barely used and were mostly used by huge banks like JPMorgan due to their global scale and existing compatible systems. The new board structure will help shape Swift's strategy as it develops blockchain-based ledger for tokenized assets, faster cross-border transaction services and technology capabilities around artificial intelligence, post-quantum computing and cybersecurity. Asbe's appointment comes as UPI processed a record 24.51 billion transactions worth ₹29.82 trillion in August 2026, with UPI accounting for 49% of global real-time payment transaction volume in 2025.
