Blockchain oracle provider Chainlink has unveiled one of the initial products from a collaboration with UBS Asset Management and Swift, the global financial messaging network, aimed at enabling banks to initiate on-chain transactions using their current infrastructure.
A Tuesday announcement disclosed that Chainlink has integrated its execution layer, the Chainlink Runtime Environment (CRE), with Swift messaging. This integration allows banks globally to leverage existing SWIFT infrastructure to connect with blockchains.
This integration is an extension of Project Guardian, a 2024 pilot by Chainlink, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), and UBS Tokenize, the tokenization unit of UBS Asset Management. The pilot demonstrated how tokenized fund workflows could align with existing fiat payment systems.
In the pilot, the firms executed fund subscriptions and redemptions on-chain using Swift’s ISO 20022 messages. In traditional finance, these processes pass through multiple custodians, transfer agents, fund administrators, and other intermediaries, each contributing to delays and additional reconciliation steps.
“This interoperability unlocks last-mile connectivity options already recognized and utilized by financial institutions and service providers today,” Chainlink mentioned.
As per a McKinsey report, assets under management reached $147 trillion in June 2025.
Established in the 1970s, Swift is a Belgian cooperative owned by its member banks, recognized for operating the global messaging network that facilitates cross-border payments.
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SWIFT’s evolution in blockchain
Since 2023, Swift has collaborated with Chainlink, working on tests that demonstrated how Swift’s infrastructure could serve as a singular access point for banks to multiple blockchains.
In September 2024, Swift participated with the Bank for International Settlements and 41 private financial institutions in Project Agorá, an initiative investigating how tokenized commercial bank deposits could function alongside wholesale central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) on a unified platform.
In March of that same year, the cooperative announced plans for a blockchain-based “state machine” to monitor transactions and balances across institutions using ISO 20022 messaging, designed to operate on either blockchain or its centralized Transaction Manager platform.
Swift is additionally partnering with Ethereum ecosystem developer Consensys and over 30 institutions to devise a blockchain settlement system targeted at facilitating round-the-clock, real-time cross-border payments.
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