Philippines wants to abandon SWIFT

Rizal Commercial Banking Corporation (RCBC), one of the ten largest banks in the Philippines by assets, is developing a blockchain platform that will allow Filipinos in Japan to make cheaper and faster money transfers.

The platform will be developed by technology giant IBM. “IBM has decided to launch a pilot platform with the participation of 15 banks around the world, one of which is in the Philippines,” said RCBC Vice President Manny T. Narcisco. Transfers will be carried out between RCBC, Resona Bank and another Japanese bank.

In 2017, the volume of remittances in the Philippines reached a record level of 31.3 billion US dollars, personal remittances from foreign nationals reached a new high of US$3 billion. “Personal remittances from Filipino workers accounted for 10.0 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) and 8.3 percent of gross national income (GNI) in 2017,” according to the Central Bank of the Philippines.

In April 2018, remittances of Filipino workers from Japan amounted to more than $137 million, making them largest source of funds for the Philippines. It is not surprising that the bank is targeting this remittance corridor between Japan and the Philippines.

Why does RCBC want to exchange the international interbank transaction system based on SWIFT for a decentralized system without an intermediary? Because it's cheaper, faster and happens in real time.

RCBC joins a growing list of financial institutions using this system. Last year, the Central Bank of Thailand and SBI Remit in Japan launched Ripple, a money transfer platform that transfers funds between bank accounts in 2-5 seconds. Another such transfer service is provided between a bank in Thailand and Singapore.

According to https://www.ccn.com