SWIFT announced a blockchain-based shared ledger at Sibos 2025, while HSBC quietly runs XRP-linked infrastructure. The TradFi-crypto line just blurred.
SWIFT announced it will add a blockchain-based shared ledger to its payment infrastructure. The announcement came at Sibos 2025 in Frankfurt. And the financial world has not stopped talking since.
SWIFT CEO Javier Pérez-Tasso confirmed the move in an official statement, saying the network will record, sequence, and validate transactions through smart contracts. He noted that banks had been asking SWIFT to take a bigger role in digital finance. Over 30 global financial institutions from 16 countries are already helping design the ledger. The first use case targets real-time, 24/7 cross-border payments.
“You may think, ‘Wow, aren’t those opposites? Swift and blockchain,'” Pérez-Tasso said in the official announcement, adding that in the regulated system of the future, the two can work together. The prototype is being built with Consensys.
Then there’s HSBC. Quiet. Deliberate. Already moving.
As ChartNerdTA noted on X, HSBC runs Ripple-acquired Metaco’s Harmonize platform to deliver tokenized securities. That is not a rumor. That is confirmed infrastructure. ChartNerdTA also pointed out that HSBC sits inside the Hong Kong Monetary Authority’s Project Ensemble, a digital asset initiative where Ripple operates as a core technology provider for the e-HKD pilot.
“Smile and wave, boys,” ChartNerdTA posted on X. Short. But the weight of it lands differently when you trace the connections.
So HSBC uses Ripple’s custody technology. HSBC is also part of a project where Ripple handles the digital currency layer. And XRP is Ripple’s native asset. That chain of links isn’t subtle; it’s just not being announced with a press release.
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The ledger will work alongside SWIFT’s existing messaging rails and ISO 20022 standards. Pérez-Tasso described it as a layered approach, not a replacement. “In infrastructure strength comes through layered innovation,” he said at Sibos, noting the final result will be greater than its individual parts.
The system will cover more than 200 countries and territories. Compliance, risk controls, and governance rules will be embedded directly into transaction flows. That last part matters. It means regulators can be baked in from the start, not patched on later.
Consensys is building the prototype. That’s an Ethereum infrastructure company. So this isn’t even strictly an XRP story; it’s a story about traditional finance moving fast toward tokenized rails, and multiple digital asset networks are positioned nearby.
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Meanwhile, the Project Ensemble connection deserves more attention. HKMA’s initiative is one of the most advanced central bank digital asset programs running today. Ripple sits inside it as technology infrastructure. HSBC sits inside it as a participating institution. Whether or not XRP moves value directly in that environment, the network effect around Ripple’s tech keeps widening.
ChartNerdTA’s X post framed it plainly. Metaco’s Harmonize platform now sits inside one of the world’s largest banks. And Ripple bought Metaco. Those two facts together are not coincidental.
SWIFT’s blockchain move is the headline. But the deeper story is how institutional infrastructure is consolidating around a handful of blockchain-adjacent firms, and Ripple keeps showing up.
The 30-plus banks designing SWIFT’s ledger have not disclosed their full list. What’s known is that institutions from 16 countries are shaping governance and functionality. HSBC, given its existing Ripple exposure, would not be out of place in that group. That’s speculation — but it’s grounded speculation.
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What isn’t speculation: SWIFT is going blockchain. HSBC is already running Ripple’s technology. And the same bank operates inside a Hong Kong digital currency program where Ripple is embedded at the infrastructure level. Three separate data points. One direction.
The line between TradFi and crypto rails just got harder to draw.
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