Interbank Messaging Service SWIFT Partners With Chainlink Labs

Interbank messaging service SWIFT has partnered with Chainlink Labs, the firm responsible for the development of the Chainlink (LINK) blockchain project.

SWIFT will leverage Chainlink, a blockchain that provides price feeds and other data to blockchains, for a cross-chain interoperability protocol (CCIP) in an initial proof-of-concept.

With the help of CCIP, SWIFT messages can be used to instruct on-chain token transfers which in turn will help the interbank network relay communication across all the present blockchain via LINK.

Chainlink co-founder Sergey Nazarov was present at the SmartCon 2022 conference in New York City, where he said Chainlink's partnership with SWIFT would accelerate the adoption of distributed ledger technology (DLT) blockchains and would also be advantageous to institutions across various capital markets, The Block reported Wednesday.

Jonathan Ehrenfeld Solé, SWIFT's strategy director, added that one of the major reasons why the interbank messaging service's partnership with Chainlink for CCIP has been successful is because there's "undeniable interest" in crypto from institutional investors. Solé believes institutions from the world of traditional finance want to enter the crypto and blockchain space and get exposure to the same.

The partnership between the two firms will enable players from traditional finance to enter the crypto and blockchain industry, Solé further said.

The demand for interoperability networks from both crypto projects and players from traditional finance has risen significantly over the last year. In August, several Solana-based projects came together to form the Open Chat Alliance, an interoperable messaging platform.

Meanwhile, SWIFT shared in December 2021 that it would work on several experiments with other firms in Q1 2022 "to explore how it can support interoperability in the development of the tokenized asset market."

"Relative to cryptocurrencies and stablecoins, the current market capitalization of tokenized assets is small but momentum for these digital assets is expected to accelerate rapidly in the coming years," SWIFT said at the time.