More liquid than SWIFT

Wells Fargo’s Stablecoin ‘Faster, Cheaper’ Than SWIFT, Says Exec

Banking giant Wells Fargo says its blockchain for internal cross-border money transfers is faster and more efficient than SWIFT, the global messaging system used by over 11,000 financial institutions.
Unveiled this week, Wells Fargo Digital Cash uses R3’s Corda Enterprise software to handle internal book transfers, when funds move from a payer’s account to a payee’s account at the same bank.
“When we move money across the world and we need to exchange currencies, we have to go through third parties such as SWIFT and other banks,” said Lisa Frazier, head of the Innovation Group at Wells Fargo. “That’s a long process and every time there’s a connection with external parties, it takes time and energy and effort.”
Using the digital cash would allow the bank to move funds 20 hours a day, up from only six to nine hours, five days a week when it relies on wire transfers and systems like SWIFT, Frazier said.

SWIFT has a hierarchical ascend, descend structure to clearing through a chain of banks.  The blockchain cuts through because all parties validate the transaction asynchronously and immediately.  But if the system is extended to all 11,000 banks using SWIFT then the shortcut cannot be guaranteed, there will be times when the blockchain is a bit slower than the equivalent SWIFT. So the scaling problem is not yet gone.

However, the scaling problem is not relevant is Wells Fagos connects all its internal investment funds to the block chain.  Then we have a complete liquidity net, intenrally, and cross net exchanges are don ad hoc using atomic swaps across ledgers. This is the most efficient solution to scaling.