Ripple chiseled open a crack in the wall, but Swift simply tore down the entire wall.

At Sibos 2025 in Frankfurt, Swift Chief Business Officer Thierry Chilosi and Michael Spiegel, Global Head of Transaction Banking at Standard Chartered Bank, examined the sweeping transformation taking place in global finance. As tokenization moves from pilot projects to practical deployment, Swift has announced the integration of a blockchain-based shared ledger into its core infrastructure. This initiative is designed to enable trusted, interoperable digital finance at a global scale. The ledger will provide secure, real-time transaction records between financial institutions, leveraging smart contracts to validate transaction sequences and execute agreed rules. Swift aims to enhance existing systems and create a seamless bridge between traditional finance and tokenized assets.

Source: Swift official website

Although Swift did not specify the underlying technology when first announcing this milestone to the banking sector, Consensys CEO Joe Lubin disclosed at Token2049 in Singapore that Swift is utilizing the Ethereum Layer 2 network Linea to build its new payment settlement platform. By adopting Linea’s zk-EVM rollup technology, Swift can meet the industry’s demanding requirements for 24/7 real-time settlement and security, while dramatically reducing costs and latency. More than 30 leading financial institutions, including JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, and Citibank, are preparing to participate in the pilot of this new Linea-based blockchain payment rail.

Ripple: Deep Engagement and Current Landscape

Before evaluating Swift, it’s essential to revisit Ripple, the trailblazer that has challenged legacy systems for over a decade.

Ripple launched the XRP Ledger (XRPL) in 2012, aiming to replace the inefficient Swift correspondent banking model. Since then, Ripple has built a global payment network, RippleNet, connecting over 300 financial institutions. In fragmented markets such as Southeast Asia, Ripple’s On-Demand Liquidity (ODL) service has proven that XRP, as a bridge currency, can reduce cross-border settlement times from several days to just three to five seconds.

In 2020, Ripple faced a blockade and stagnation in the U.S. market due to SEC litigation and securities allegations. However, its global growth accelerated. By 2022, Ripple’s business reached more than 40 payment markets, with total payment volume doubling to approximately $30 billion.

Ripple turned a corner in 2023 when the court ruled XRP itself is not a security, marking a landmark victory for Ripple and the broader industry.

By August 2025, with the SEC officially dropping its appeal, the five-year legal battle ended. Full legal clarity led to the approval of XRP spot ETFs, formally adding XRP to mainstream institutional asset allocation lists.

Ripple now facilitates cross-border payments in multiple real-world scenarios, spanning retail remittances (To C) and enterprise-grade transactions (To B).

In retail, Japan’s SBI Remit uses XRP to enable real-time remittance channels to the Philippines, Vietnam, and Indonesia, significantly reducing pre-funding costs for overseas workers. Santander leverages its One Pay FX application to deliver transparent, real-time transfers to customers. Southeast Asian payment platform Tranglo has notably improved peso and baht settlement efficiency with Ripple ODL support.

On the enterprise side, American Express and PNC Bank have each used RippleNet to optimize B2B trade settlements and international payment experiences.

Ripple has also partnered with more than 20 countries—including Palau, Montenegro, and Bhutan—to develop CBDC platforms, applying blockchain technology to sovereign currency issuance and clearing systems as part of national infrastructure.

Why Swift Chose Linea

Major players building in the Ethereum ecosystem show strong alignment around Layer 2 technology: Coinbase’s Base chain is built on OP Stack, while Robinhood announced this year the launch of Robinhood Chain using Arbitrum technology to support tokenization of real-world assets (RWA) and 24/7 trading.

This preference arises from Layer 2’s ability to leverage Ethereum’s security and deliver high performance through modular architecture. Swift’s choice of Linea over OP or Arbitrum centers on differences in core verification logic.

OP and Arbitrum use Optimistic Rollups, which presume transactions are valid unless challenged. Asset withdrawals typically require a multi-day challenge period, imposing significant time costs for liquidity-focused financial settlements.

Linea employs zk-EVM, providing instant validity proofs through mathematical methods. For Swift and its partner banks, which handle large-scale value settlements, zk-EVM enables faster finality and ensures compliant verification while safeguarding transaction privacy.

Swift’s selection of Linea reflects the primary principle of capital operation: maximizing liquidity velocity.

Capital will flow like liquid, migrating from traditional systems with low velocity (large pre-funded reserves in Nostro/Vostro accounts), high friction (layered correspondent banking fees), and slow settlements (multi-day telegraphic instructions), to blockchain-based digital systems offering high velocity, low friction, and rapid settlement.

Swift processes about $150 trillion in global payments annually. If Linea’s technology enables atomic reconciliation and 24/7 real-time settlement, trillions of dollars in reserves previously held to offset settlement delays could be released and reinvested into the real economy.

As Consensys CEO Joe Lubin said at Token2049 in Singapore, this is not just a technical upgrade—it’s the true convergence of TradFi and DeFi, marking the shift of global value transfer protocols from the “telegraphic instruction era” to the “mathematical verification era.”

The Significance of Swift’s Blockchain Adoption

As the backbone of global finance, processing roughly $150 trillion in annual transactions, Swift’s decision to build its ledger on Linea, an Ethereum Layer 2, marks blockchain technology’s emergence as the heart of mainstream finance.

Swift will eliminate fragmentation between tokenization networks through unified technical standards, breaking the long-standing divide between TradFi and DeFi, and infusing the efficiency of decentralized finance into traditional clearing.

With a real-time shared ledger operating 24/7, financial institutions worldwide will no longer be restricted by the manual reconciliation and time zone delays of correspondent banking. The vast reserves previously held in correspondent accounts to hedge settlement risk will be freed, allowing capital flows to match modern economic needs and ushering in a new era of global value transfer that is more transparent, cost-effective, and interoperable.

Ripple has spent a decade building an alternative city on the XRP Ledger outside legacy systems, but its network of financial institution connections pales in comparison to Swift’s coverage of over 200 countries and 11,000 institutions worldwide.

Swift’s core competitive advantage is “asset neutrality.” Unlike Ripple’s ODL model, which relies heavily on XRP as a bridge currency, Swift’s blockchain ledger is designed to support fiat currencies, stablecoins, and CBDCs.

Banks within the Swift system can achieve instant settlement by upgrading existing rails, without exposure to single-asset volatility. This combination of incumbent scale and technical compliance presents Ripple with its toughest challenge since inception.

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