Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) has signed up for SWIFT’s Workers’ Remittances 1.0, the new service to support financial institutions’ cross-border person-to-person payments.

ICBC will use the solution for its substantial existing global remittance business in countries such as the United States and South Africa. SWIFT’s Beijing office is now providing assistance to ICBC on locating pilot partners in these target regions and with pilot preparation. The bank also has plans for further expansion of its workers’ remittances business.

Workers’ remittances are defined by the World Bank as ‘cross-border, person-to-person payments of relatively low-value’. According to SWIFT estimates, over 200 million migrants initiate between one and 1.5 billion cross-border payments each year, and industry revenue exceeds USD 15 billion annually. SWIFT’s solution is designed to enable banks to clear and settle these payments in a mfore efficient and transparent way, using the SWIFT global network and standards.

The SWIFT Workers’ Remittances solution makes the bilateral model scalable and efficient, as it uses a common market practice rulebook, messaging standards and services as well as reference data. Following the successful conclusion of SWIFT’s global pilot in April this year, six banks are now certified for the Workers’ Remittances live service and a further 24 are in implementation.