On December 11, 2025, Ant International, HSBC, and SWIFT announced the successful completion of a proof-of-concept (PoC): the cross-border transfer of tokenized deposits over the SWIFT network using the ISO 20022 messaging standard. Notably, the PoC also extended SWIFT’s existing anti-money laundering (AML) and fraud detection capabilities to tokenized deposit transactions.
At first glance, this may appear to be just another step forward in cross-border payment efficiency. But from the perspective of long-term Real World Asset (RWA) development, it fills a critical missing piece for scaling: enabling the circulation of on-chain assets requires not only tokenized assets but also tokenized cash legs and cross-institutional interoperability.
The Core Insight: It’s Not About Speed, It’s About Interoperability
1) Tokenized Deposits: Closer to “Bank Money” Than “Stablecoins”
The PoC utilized HSBC’s Tokenised Deposit Service, essentially tokenized representations of bank deposits. This form of value aligns better with institutional habits and regulatory frameworks than stablecoins. For corporate treasury and cross-border liquidity management, tokenized deposits offer a more intuitive and compliant alternative to converting into stablecoins for settlement.
2) ISO 20022: Connecting On-Chain Transfers with the Global Financial Language
The real pain point between financial institutions isn’t just the transfer of value, but the structure of instructions, identity data, compliance fields, and reconciliation information. ISO 20022 addresses this by standardizing the messaging structure, enabling on-chain and off-chain systems to “speak the same language.” While different banks are experimenting with tokenized deposits, data fragmentation is an issue ISO 20022 aims to solve that.
3) SWIFT’s Evolution: From Messaging Highway to Orchestration Layer for Digital Payments
This PoC is not an isolated initiative. SWIFT has publicly stated its intention to co-develop a “shared digital ledger” with global institutions, with 24/7 real-time cross-border payments as a primary use case. This suggests SWIFT aims to bring its trust network and rulebook into the digital asset era, becoming the orchestration and interoperability layer across networks and platforms.
If Scaled, What Would This Mean for the RWA Market?
1) RWA Settlement Loops Could Finally Meet Institutional Standards
While many RWAs today are technically “on-chain,” the investment process still resembles traditional private placements: subscription, payment, reconciliation, delivery, holding, redemption often slow, manual, and fragmented. True improvement lies in closing two loops:
- Asset leg: Issuance, registry, transfer, and rights tracking of the RWA token.
- Cash leg: Synchronized delivery and settlement of cash during purchase/sale (the “DvP” cash side).
This PoC tackles the cash leg. If bank money can move cross-border in tokenized form, with ISO 20022 and SWIFT embedding compliance and reconciliation into the flow, then RWA settlement can approach the operational standards institutional investors expect.
2) Liquidity Depends Not on “Demand,” But on “Frictionless Execution”
Secondary liquidity for RWAs often breaks down in post-trade execution: who’s allowed to buy, how cash moves, when settlement is final, how to reconcile, and how to manage cross-border compliance. This PoC shifts these hurdles upstream embedding them into messaging standards and infrastructure to lower bilateral integration costs.
In short, this development is net positive for institutional-grade RWAs. The value comes not just from speed, but from settlement readiness, reconciliability, and scalability.
From the Investor’s Lens: How Will RWA Investment Experiences Evolve?
Assuming capabilities from this PoC are widely adopted across banks, regions, and corporate treasury systems investing in RWAs could begin to resemble a modern digital securities account rather than a slow, opaque private investment.
1) From “T+N and Manual Reconciliation” to “Real-Time Confirmation and Automated Reconciliation”
- Subscription: A click-to-order experience, with tokenized deposits transferring on-chain and generating standardized receipts.
- Delivery Confirmation: Near-instant visibility into “cash locked/delivered” status with verifiability.
- Reconciliation: No more dependence on multi-party confirmation structured ISO 20022 data can feed directly into accounting systems.
2) Transparency Means Verifiability, Not Full Disclosure
Institutional investors don’t necessarily need full transparency; they need auditability, traceability, and verifiability. This includes transaction status, asset registry, rights changes, redemption history, and fee consistency. Blockchain offers a single source of truth, while SWIFT and banks provide compliance and identity boundaries. Together, they enable regulatory-grade transparency, not anonymous openness.
3) Lower Costs Will Come From Automation, Not Deregulation
Cross-border transactions are expensive not because of fees, but due to process friction: time zones, cutoffs, reconciliation loops, compliance checks, and rework due to missing data. The PoC explicitly extends SWIFT’s AML and anti-fraud infrastructure into tokenized deposit flows, indicating that future cost savings will come from standardization, not regulation avoidance.
From the Issuer’s Perspective: What Are the Gains?
1) Expanded Distribution Radius: Access to “Regulatory-Usable Capital”
Issuers care less about “putting assets on-chain” and more about whether qualified capital can frictionlessly buy them. As the cash leg becomes more institutional (tokenized deposits + SWIFT + standardized messages), issuers can integrate more easily into institutional workflows, custodians, payment agents, broker/dealers, and treasury systems.
2) Automated Lifecycle Management: Interest, Dividends, Redemptions, Corporate Actions
The complexity of RWA isn’t in issuance, it’s in post-issuance operations. Payments, interest accruals, defaults, disclosures, investor reporting. These are outside the reach of oracles and lie within financial infrastructure. If both value and data are standardized, these can be orchestrated into repeatable workflows reducing operational costs and enabling sustained market-making or buybacks.
3) Easier to Launch Cross-Border RWA Products
Jurisdictional limits (investor eligibility, sales restrictions, disclosure requirements) mean issuers need repeatable compliance systems. For example: is the recipient still on the whitelist after interest is paid? Are post-transfer holders still compliant? Can frozen or failed payments be traced? ISO 20022 + SWIFT’s identity and rule network could make these into system configurations instead of manual processes each time.
Conclusion:
RWA’s Next Leap May Come from the Form of Money, Not the Form of Assets
In recent years, most RWA discussion has focused on what assets can be tokenized. But the real unlock for scale often lies in settlement currency and interoperability standards. This PoC brings together tokenized bank money, ISO 20022 (the global financial messaging standard), and the SWIFT network embedding compliance into the transaction path.
If this approach is widely adopted, the RWA investment experience could resemble real-time digital financial products: smoother execution, faster confirmations, automated reconciliation, and verifiable data. Issuers, in turn, could evolve RWAs from single-project deals to repeatable product lines.
For investors, this signals an important shift: RWAs entering the stage of repeatable, scalable financial infrastructure. Of course, real interoperability requires more participants and standards KYC, whitelisting, final arbitration, and more. But the very fact that this PoC allows us to envision such a future speaks to its milestone-level significance.
References:
[1] Ant International, HSBC, SWIFT. Ant International and HSBC Test New Cross-Border Payments Solution Using Tokenised Deposits on SWIFT’s Network and Powered by ISO 20022. Business Wire, 2025-12-11.
[2] SWIFT. Building the digital payment stack of the future. SWIFT.com
[3] SWIFT. SWIFT to add blockchain-based ledger. SWIFT.com, 2025-09-29.
[4] Ledger Insights. Ant Intl, HSBC, SWIFT conduct PoC to standardize tokenized deposit integration. 2025-12-11.
[5] Financial Stability Board (FSB). G20 Roadmap for Enhancing Cross-border Payments – Progress Report, 2025-10-09.
[6] BIS / CPMI. Extending and aligning RTGS operating hours, 2025-05-14.
[7] Reuters. G20’s cross-border payments push set to miss 2027 target, 2025-10-09.
[8] Financial Times. SWIFT to launch blockchain in response to rise of stablecoins, 2025-10.