Sterling Bank leads int’l payments in W’Africa with SWIFT GPI

Sterling Bank Plc has emerged the first bank in West Africa to go live on SWIFT Global Payments Innovation (gpi). SWIFT gpi dramatically improves the customer experience by increasing the speed, transparency and end-to-end tracking of cross-border payments.

Executive Director, Corporate and Investment Banking, Sterling Bank, Yemi Odubiyi, said the introduction of SWIFT GPI has transformed cross border payments for the benefit of the bank’s customers.

“As a key player committed to the digital transformation of Nigeria’s financial sector, we have delivered the solution and all its benefits to our customers. Sterling is the first bank in Nigeria and West Africa to achieve SWIFT gpi implementation, as this was driven by our commitment to provide faster, transparent and traceable   international payments”, he said.

Odubiyi added that other benefits of SWIFT gpi includes, receiving confirmation message when beneficiary has been paid, ensuring remittance data is unchanged when payment arrives at the destination bank, Stop and recall – Allowing payment messages to be immediately stopped in case of fraud or error, no matter where they are in the gpi transaction chain.

According to him, around 40 per cent of SWIFT gpi payments are credited to end-beneficiaries within five minutes; 50 per cent are credited within 30 minutes; and almost 100 per cent within 24 hours.

“Sterling Bank continues to be a first mover in the adoption of technologies that makes banking transactions more efficient and seamless for retail, corporate, institutional and commercial banking customers in the country”. He explained.