Swift, the Society for Worldwide Interbank Telecommunication, is perhaps best known for its role as the provider of the secure messagingsystem for the world's banks.
It serves more than 6,000 financial institutions from its three hubs - Hong Kong, the Netherlands and the United States - and accounts for more than 90 per cent of banking messages sent, representing transactions worth more than US$2 trillion every year.
Swift is far from an exclusively banking system, however. For the last two decades, the company has been moving aggressively to capture new markets.
Steve Farrage, regional manager, securities markets, for Swift, said much of the impetus for this expansion drive came from the desire to attain straight-through processing, or STP, in financial transactions.
'The front end of the trading cycle - that's where STP should start,' he said.
'More and more emphasis is on the trade initiation side.' STP is where a financial transaction is conducted in one, continuous process, from the moment of initiation to settlement.