In our previous article, we explored the different types of payment networks that exist today. But right now, a silent war is being fought behind the scenes of the global economy.
For fifty years, the SWIFT network has been the undisputed king of international finance. But the king is aging. In response, three distinct “camps” are racing to build the digital backbone that will replace (or upgrade) it.
We are witnessing a “Battle for the Backbone.” The winner will determine how money moves for the next half-century. Here are the three major contenders fighting for the future of your funds.
Contender 1: The Incumbent Upgrade (SWIFT + ISO 20022)
The Strategy: Don’t replace the pipes; make them smarter.
SWIFT is not going down without a fight. Its answer to the fintech revolution is a massive, mandatory upgrade called ISO 20022.
Historically, SWIFT messages were like sending a fax—they contained very little data, often just “Account A pays Account B.” If you wanted to know why the payment was made or include an invoice number, you were out of luck. This lack of data caused millions of failed payments and compliance delays.
The Upgrade: By late 2025, the global financial system will fully migrate to ISO 20022. This is a new language that allows payment messages to carry huge amounts of structured data (xml).
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The Benefit: Payments will essentially carry their own luggage (invoices, tax IDs, purpose codes) with them. This reduces manual checks and speeds up processing, aiming to make the legacy network feel as fast as a fintech app.
Contender 2: The “Network of Networks” (Project Nexus)
The Strategy: Connect the national islands.
While SWIFT tries to fix the old highway, another group is trying to build bridges between national “fast payment” systems.
Most countries now have their own amazing domestic instant payment systems—India has UPI, Singapore has PayNow, and Brazil has Pix. These systems are lightning-fast inside their own borders but useless outside of them.
The Project: Spearheaded by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), Project Nexus aims to plug these systems into each other.
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How it works: Instead of sending money through a chain of banks, Project Nexus acts as a universal adapter. It allows a user on India’s UPI to send Rupees that instantly convert and land in a Singaporean PayNow user’s account in SGD.
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The Status: We are already seeing this live with the UPI-PayNow linkage. If this model scales globally, it could render traditional wire transfers obsolete for small-to-medium transactions.
Contender 3: The Blockchain Rebels (mBridge & CBDCs)
The Strategy: Build a new internet for money.
The third contender is the most radical. Led largely by central banks in Asia and the Middle East, Project mBridge is building a platform that skips the commercial banking system entirely.
The Technology: mBridge uses a “Distributed Ledger” (similar to blockchain) shared directly between Central Banks (e.g., The People’s Bank of China and the Central Bank of the UAE).
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The Benefit: It allows for “Atomic Settlement.” Money doesn’t move through intermediaries. The Central Bank of UAE destroys a digital token on one side, and the People’s Bank of China simultaneously creates a token on the other.
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Why it matters: This bypasses the US-dollar-centric correspondent banking system, offering a way for countries to trade directly without political or currency risk from the West.
The Risk: The “Splinternet” of Money
The danger of this race is fragmentation. We might move from one slow global network (SWIFT) to three fast, disconnected ones.
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Western nations might stick to the SWIFT/ISO 20022 upgrade.
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Asian and developing nations might flock to mBridge or Nexus linkages.
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Crypto-native businesses might live entirely on private stablecoin networks (like USDC on Solana or Ethereum).
Conclusion: What This Means for You
As a business owner, you don’t need to pick a winner yet—but you do need to pick a provider that is “network agnostic.”
The best cross-border payment networks (as discussed in earlier blogs) are already plugging into all these networks simultaneously. They route your payment via SWIFT if it needs to go to the US, via local rails if it’s going to the UK, and potentially via blockchain for emerging markets.
The backbone is being rebuilt. Ensure your business is standing on a platform that can handle the construction.
