City Bank became the first bank globally to successfully validate and execute live transactions in both sending and receiving roles under Swift ’s new retail cross-border payments called “scheme”.
Over 50 major banks across 17 countries—including participants from key corridors in Australia, Canada, China, Germany, India, Spain, Thailand, the UK, Middle East and the US have committed to adopting this framework.
City Bank is the only bank from Bangladesh currently participating in the Swift scheme. City Bank joined the initiative in February 2026 and achieved full project "go-live" readiness in just 5 months.
Traditional cross-border payments and remittances often face delays and high costs due to multiple intermediary banking legs, varying global processing times, and diverse regulatory requirements.
Intermediary fees also reduce the final amount received by beneficiaries.
To eliminate these barriers, Swift designed this new payment framework to ensure retail customers and small businesses experience fast, predictable, and transparent international transfers.
The framework provides guaranteed full-value transfers without hidden intermediary deductions, upfront fee transparency, end-to-end traceability, faster settlement, predictable delivery times, and 24/7 gateway availability.
These enhancements provide customers with greater confidence that their funds will reach beneficiaries quickly, transparently and in full.
City Bank completed its first transaction in 1 minute and the next are in just 57 seconds on June 22.
On June 23, as a receiver, City Bank coordinated with HDFC India to clear and route an incoming payment from India to another local Bangladeshi bank.
Banks around the world have been progressively going live under the new framework since June 2026, supporting the G20's objectives of improving the speed, transparency, predictability, and efficiency of cross-border payments while eliminating hidden intermediary charges.
City Bank's achievement was recently recognized at an event on ‘Streamlining inward remittances and enhancing operational efficiency across Bangladesh's financial sector’, jointly organized by Swift and the Association of Bankers Bangladesh (ABB).
During the ceremony, a crest was presented to Mashrur Arefin, managing director & CEO of City Bank by Md Habibur Rahman, deputy governor of Bangladesh Bank, and Kiran Shetty, CEO & regional head, India & South Asia, Swift.
Senior representatives from City Bank, including Mahia Juned, additional managing director, COO & CAMELCO, Mesbaul Asif Siddiqui, DMD & head of wholesale banking, and Arpita Ghosh, account director – India & country manager – Bangladesh, were also present.
