Blockchain oracle provider Chainlink announced one of the first products from a pilot with UBS Asset Management and Swift, the global financial messaging network, designed to let banks trigger onchain transactions using their existing infrastructure.
According to a Tuesday announcement, Chainlink integrated its execution layer, the Chainlink Runtime Environment (CRE), with Swift messaging. The move enables banks worldwide to use existing SWIFT rails to connect to blockchains.
The integration builds on Project Guardian, a 2024 pilot by Chainlink, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and UBS Tokenize, the in-house tokenization unit of UBS Asset Management. The pilot showed how tokenized fund workflows could integrate with existing fiat payment systems.
Under the pilot, the companies used Swift’s ISO 20022 messages to carry out fund subscriptions and redemptions onchain. In traditional finance, those processes move through a chain of custodians, transfer agents, fund administrators and other intermediaries, each adding time and reconciliation steps.
“This interoperability unlock enables last-mile connectivity options already familiar and used by financial institutions and service providers today,” Chainlink said.
According to a report from McKinsey, assets under management reached $147 trillion in June 2025.
Founded in the 1970s, Swift is a Belgium-based cooperative owned by its member banks and known for operating the global messaging network that underpins cross-border payments.
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SWIFT’s evolution in blockchain
Swift has been working with Chainlink since 2023, when the two collaborated on tests showing how Swift’s infrastructure could provide banks with a single access point to multiple blockchains.
In September 2024, Swift joined the Bank for International Settlements and 41 private financial firms in Project Agorá, an initiative exploring how tokenized commercial bank deposits could operate alongside wholesale central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) on a shared platform.
In March the same year, the cooperative outlined plans for a blockchain-based “state machine” to track transactions and balances across institutions using ISO 20022 messaging, designed to run either on blockchain or on its centralized Transaction Manager platform.
Swift is also working with Ethereum ecosystem developer Consensys and more than 30 institutions to develop a blockchain settlement system designed for round-the-clock, real-time cross-border payments.
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