At Sibos last week SWIFT said that the Board of Directors of Hong Kong Interbank Clearing Limited (HKICL) and the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) had chosen SWIFTNet as their messaging platform to replace their existing proprietary RTGS network.
At present the systems that have implemented SWIFT are: PDS (Australia), BIREL, CHAPS, CLS, CRI, RTGSplus and Target.
“Building an efficient and robust financial infrastructure is essential in maintaining financial stability in general and more so in Hong Kong because of its complexity relating to multi-currency and multi-dimensional service,” says Eddie Yue, the Executive Director of Monetary Management and Infrastructure Department at HKMA. “In a rapidly changing financial services environment around the globe, it is absolutely imperative to adopt a global standard in order to stay competitive and retain Hong Kong as the financial hub in the region.”
Implementation has started and industry-wide testing for HKICL and HKMA is scheduled for the end of 2007 and is expected to go live in 2008.