Chainlink Opens Swift Blockchain Ledger to Banks Without Giving Up Key Control

Chainlink has launched a solution that enables financial institutions to interact with Swift’s blockchain-based ledger while maintaining their own control over cryptographic keys used to authenticate transactions.

Announced Sept. 28, the project will use the Chainlink Runtime Environment, or CRE, service to connect current institutional platforms with services on a shared ledger built by Swift.

The architecture includes secure self-signing. Banks retain their transaction-signing keys, and CRE provides an intermediary layer for bank access to the ledger.

According to Chainlink, financial institutions can use a tokenized payment system without relinquishing signing control to a third party or compromising other controls over their operations.

The framework would help with the use of smart contracts between banks and on the Swift blockchain. Tokenized deposits would still be bank liabilities held on bank blockchains.

Swift’s common infrastructure can help settle and verify payment obligations between participants. Other settlement methods, such as real-time gross settlement systems and correspondent relationships, can be used for the final settlement of payments.

The partnership builds on previous collaborations between Chainlink and Swift to promote blockchain interoperability within the institutional sector. Other projects have shown the use of Swift communications and Chainlink services to help legacy financial firms interact with blockchain and tokenized asset networks. 

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Chainlink and UBS worked together in 2025 to implement blockchain and CRE digital asset processes using Swift communications.

Swift’s proposed ledger is designed to facilitate around-the-clock international commercial bank payments using tokenized commercial bank deposits, not a public cryptocurrency as an intermediary asset.

Swift says the ledger is intended to supplement, not replace, current financial messaging services it offers. It will be used alongside other banking services to provide a shared blockchain ledger to member institutions.

The project is now in a limited pilot testing phase. In July, Swift announced that 17 banks in six countries had expressed interest in piloting tokenized-deposit services.

Participants are ANZ, BNP Paribas, BNY, Citi, DBS, HSBC, Standard Chartered, UBS, Wells Fargo, and others. Over 40 financial companies were involved in designing the ledger.

Swift says its primary use case is making international payments 24/7. Banks can use the new service to send tokenized payments to other service users on nights and weekends and settle those payments using other payment methods. Additional uses for the service may include other types of programmable payments and payments involving digital assets in the future.

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Chainlink has not revealed which pilot bank will be the first to implement the new CRE service or when pilot banks will adopt it. Swift also states that its new ledger service remains in a limited pilot stage.

The framework allows banks to access Swift’s blockchain network under the new framework and maintains a bank’s ability to approve transactions and use current payment systems.

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