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Global Custody Pro - 01 October 2025

Global Custody Pro - 01 October 2025

SWIFT, Citi, Broadridge, Notabene, BitGo and more

Global Custody Pro
September 29, 2025 • Reading Time: 8 minutes

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Welcome to Global Custody Pro, read by custody professionals like you. I'm Brennan McDonald, Managing Editor. I write about the global custody industry, having spent over 12 years in financial services, including working at a global custody bank. An AI voice reads the audio version of this newsletter. Have feedback? Just reply to this email or connect with us on LinkedIn.

🌏 Global Custody News
🚀 Digital Asset News
- Notabene launches open stablecoin payment platform
- BitGo, Elysium partner on clearing platform

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Swift adds blockchain ledger for payments

Swift announced on 29 September 2025 that it will integrate a blockchain-based shared ledger into its technology infrastructure to enable instant, 24/7 cross-border payments and facilitate the movement of tokenised value. The announcement was made at Sibos 2025 in Frankfurt by Chief Executive Officer Javier Pérez-Tasso, who said banks are ready for the integration of traditional finance with blockchain technology in a regulated environment.

The initiative involves a coalition of over 30 leading financial institutions from 16 countries, including Bank of America, Citi, HSBC, JPMorgan Chase, Deutsche Bank, BNP Paribas, and Standard Chartered. Swift is partnering with Consensys to develop a conceptual prototype that will record, sequence and validate transactions through smart contracts whilst maintaining interoperability with both existing and emerging payment networks. The ledger will combine Swift's existing messaging capabilities, APIs and ISO 20022 standards to embed risk controls and compliance requirements from the outset.

The shared ledger represents the first use case focused on real-time cross-border payments, with development proceeding in stages beginning with the prototype phase. Pérez-Tasso described the initiative as part of Swift's dual-track innovation approach, which maintains operational excellence on existing infrastructure whilst preparing for digital finance. Timelines for availability will be determined by development and testing phases, with the company emphasising that the ledger will extend rather than replace its current platform capabilities.

Citi Launches 24/7 Cross-Border Token Payments

Citi announced it is integrating its Citi Token Services blockchain platform with its 24/7 USD Clearing solution to create an industry-first capability for 24/7, multibank cross-border instant payments. The solution, initially available for institutional clients with Citi accounts in the UK and US, enables corporate and financial institution clients to initiate payment transactions and manage liquidity near-instantaneously across Citi and non-Citi accounts globally.

The integration combines Citi's 24/7 USD Clearing solution, which facilitates transactions for over 250 banks across more than 40 markets, with Token Services' private permissioned blockchain technology. "In an increasingly 'always on' financial landscape, global commerce doesn't take weekends off and neither should payments," said Debopama Sen, Head of Payments, Services at Citi. The solution reduces the need to tie up funds in advance and removes traditional transaction limits.

Citi plans to expand the offering to additional geographies in the future. The company has processed billions of dollars in transaction value globally using Citi Token Services for Cash since its launch in 2024, with the platform now live in the US, UK, Singapore and Hong Kong. The 24/7 USD Clearing solution helps clients make USD payments in near real-time across Citi's 1,500 financial institution customers globally.

Broadridge Delivers ISO 20022

Broadridge Financial Solutions announced it has delivered full ISO 20022 cash processing capabilities for its global bank and broker/dealer clients, positioning them ahead of the November 2025 Swift Standard Release deadline. The implementation covers the company's entire post-trade platform, enabling clients to comply with mandatory requirements while accessing enhanced messaging capabilities.

The ISO 20022 migration represents the most significant change in Swift messaging in more than 20 years, according to Danny Green, Head of International Post-Trade Solutions at Broadridge. The new messaging standard provides more structured and detailed business information compared to legacy ISO 15022 formats, offering greater transparency in financial transactions. Swift will discontinue processing ISO 15022 payment messaging formats when the November 2025 deadline arrives.

Broadridge's proactive implementation approach focuses on creating a foundation for future standard expansions, demonstrating how the company helps clients navigate mandatory market changes. The firm processes over 7 billion communications annually and underpins daily average trading of over $15 trillion in equities, fixed income and other securities globally.

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Notabene launches open stablecoin payment platform

Notabene announced the launch of Notabene Flow, the first open stablecoin payments platform designed for high-value cross-border business payments. The platform introduces pull payments, recurring subscriptions, and compliant multi-party flows to Notabene's existing network of more than 2,000 regulated entities that process over $1.5 trillion annually. The launch is supported by founding partners Bitso, Borderless, Dfns, Flutterwave, Gnosis, Monerium, Orbital, Portal, Walapay, Yellow Card, and Zodia Custody.

The company said stablecoins currently represent only 0.03% of the $120 trillion global B2B payments market because crypto infrastructure lacks the trust mechanisms that traditional payment systems provide, including coordination, authorization, invoicing, and dispute resolution. The Notabene Network operates in more than 100 jurisdictions and processes over $5 billion in daily transaction volume. Through a partnership with the Global Legal Entity Identifier Foundation (GLEIF), entity verification is anchored to the internationally recognised LEI standard, with more than 2.85 million active LEIs recorded as of mid-September 2025.

Notabene Flow is built on the Transaction Authorization Protocol (TAP), an open messaging standard designed to enable verified entities to transact securely. The platform offers a single API integration for Travel Rule-compliant, multi-party B2B payment flows. Notabene said its network has been trusted for over five years by more than 240 institutions to power compliant transactions with straight-through processing rates above 85%. The company is headquartered in New York with operations in Switzerland, Singapore, Germany, and the United Kingdom.

BitGo, Elysium partner on clearing platform

BitGo, the digital asset infrastructure company, and Elysium, a boutique post-trade fintech, announced a partnership to bring institutional-grade clearing and credit workflows to BitGo's Go Network through Elysium's MatchHub platform. The integration delivers post-trade utility, operational scale and enhanced risk controls enabling institutional investors to trade digital assets with traditional market-level confidence.

BitGo, founded in 2013, provides custody, wallets, staking, trading and settlement services for digital assets from regulated cold storage, serving thousands of institutions globally. Elysium, founded in 2007, provides MatchHub post-trade technology to leading FX prime brokers and digital asset institutions, with a dedicated crypto focus since 2018 accelerated by its 2023 acquisition by Laser Digital. Go Network enables institutions to manage trading counterparty risk while maintaining assets in regulated qualified custody.

The partnership integrates MatchHub's post-trade engine to provide BitGo clients with real-time trade capture, credit monitoring and settlement orchestration through a unified platform accessible via the MatchHub portal. Brett Reeves, Head of European Sales and Go Network at BitGo, said the goal is strengthening infrastructure by providing integrated clearing and credit management capabilities. Chris O'Connor, CEO of Elysium, said the partnership creates a clearing backbone bridging traditional finance discipline with digital asset innovation.