About a-team Marketing Services
The knowledge platform for the financial technology industry
The knowledge platform for the financial technology industry

A-Team Insight Blogs

SWIFT Launches SSI Initiatives to Reduce Settlement Errors and Increase Automation

Subscribe to our newsletter

SWIFT, the financial messaging provider for more than 9,500 financial institutions and corporations in 209 countries, today announced the roll-out of a range of new initiatives designed to reduce costly settlement errors and improve the rates of automation of Standing Settlement Instructions (SSIs).

SWIFT’s initiatives are a response to the industry need for greater efficiency in SSI processing. SSIs are agreements between two financial institutions that fix the receiving agents of each counterparty. They make for speedy payment and settlement, but SSIs are frequently changed, which results in settlement errors and payment rejections. Research jointly conducted by SWIFT and 12 of its customer banks suggests there are currently about 40 million such payment errors every year, costing the financial industry an estimated USD700 million.

SWIFT has therefore launched a global SSI repository, designed to be the most accurate such resource available to the financial industry. The multiple sources and sophisticated selection strategies used will ensure that an institution’s SSIs are complete, accurate and able to be replicated with ease. An SSI directory for retail payments based on the repository will be updated and published on a monthly basis. At a later stage, SWIFT will also launch an SSI directory for treasury in the FX and money markets sectors.

The second initiative is the creation of a standard messaging format for distribution of cash SSI updates, available from November this year. The message format will be structured, validated and authenticated, and allow senders to either specify a list of recipients for the notification, or to inform the broader SWIFT community.

Third, SWIFT now offers a diagnostics service that informs customers when counterparty SSIs held in their payment applications are incorrect and details corrective measures. The service, which was unveiled at Sibos in October 2010, validates a customer’s current list of counterparty SSIs against multiple information sources to provide a reliable picture of their accuracy.

Commenting on the raft of SSI initiatives, Patrik Neutjens, Head of Reference Data at SWIFT, said: “The lack of a single source for SSI information has led to payment failures, costing banks considerable time and money. In the age of automation and real-time reporting, it is crucial that this situation improves.”

“These three initiatives will provide a comprehensive solution to some of the problems with changing SSIs. SWIFT’s efforts will drastically improve the situation, culminating in a standard message format to allow banks and other financial institutions to efficiently update each other on changes to their SSI arrangements. This message format will ensure that only relevant parties are informed of the changes and prevent financial institutions being overwhelmed with irrelevant updates.”

Subscribe to our newsletter

Related content

WEBINAR

Upcoming Webinar: Mastering Data Lineage for Risk, Compliance, and AI Governance

18 June 2025 10:00am ET | 3:00pm London | 4:00pm CET Duration: 50 Minutes Financial institutions are under increasing pressure to ensure data transparency, regulatory compliance, and AI governance. Yet many struggle with fragmented data landscapes, poor lineage tracking and compliance gaps. This webinar will explore how enterprise-grade data lineage can help capital markets participants...

BLOG

Experts Urge Data-Focussed Prep for Asset Management AI Adoption

Leading data practitioners have urged financial institutions to ensure they have suitable data management and infrastructural setups to accommodate artificial intelligence (AI) applications following a report that suggested asset managers are struggling to roll out the technology. The latest in an annual study by professional services giant KPMG found that while asset managers in the...

EVENT

TradingTech Summit London

Now in its 14th year the TradingTech Summit London brings together the European trading technology capital markets industry and examines the latest changes and innovations in trading technology and explores how technology is being deployed to create an edge in sell side and buy side capital markets financial institutions.

GUIDE

AI in Capital Markets: Practical Insight for a Transforming Industry – Free Handbook

AI is no longer on the horizon – it’s embedded in the infrastructure of modern capital markets. But separating real impact from inflated promises requires a grounded, practical understanding. The AI in Capital Markets Handbook 2025 provides exactly that. Designed for data-driven professionals across the trade life-cycle, compliance, infrastructure, and strategy, this handbook goes beyond...