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Private sector ICICI Bank on Wednesday announced that it has tied up with SWIFT to offer a facility that helps overseas partner banks to send instant remittances on behalf of their customers to the beneficiary in India.

The beneficiary gets the credit to the bank account instantly. This makes ICICI Bank the first bank in Asia-Pacific and second globally to offer the facility, called 'SWIFT gpi Instant', for cross-border inward payments.

This service that offers instant credit works by connecting 'SWIFT gpi', the high-speed cross border rails with a real-time domestic payments infrastructure. ICICI Bank has enabled its systems to process the payments message coming via 'SWIFT gpi Instant' and further remit it instantly to any bank account in India using the IMPS (Immediate Payment Solution) platform, provided the bank is enabled to receive foreign remittance through IMPS). The solution makes the cross-border personal remittances upto Rs 2 lakh coming into India, transparent, reliable, and instant and thereby, reducing the turnaround time significantly from the industry practice of at least few hours.

ICICI Bank was the first bank in India to enable 'SWIFT gpi', which provided the partner banks improved transparency on charges, speed of execution, predictability and end to end tracking of cross border payments for retail and corporate remittances.

For corporate customers, it has been enabled in December 2019 and is available on 'Trade Online', the Bank's digital platform for export-import transactions. 'SWIFT gpi' enables companies/entities to get current status of their payment, time taken at each step, and final delivery date for their payments.

ICICI Bank's Head, International Banking Group, Sriram H. Iyer, said: "India is the largest recipient of cross-border remittances, according to the World Bank data, and ICICI Bank has been a dominant player in inward remittances to India. We are delighted to be the first bank in Asia-Pacific to go live with the 'SWIFT gpi Instant' solution. This integration with the SWIFT platform brings in the convenience of the path-breaking paradigm of almost instant and seamless cross-border remittances."