Mastercard CEO teases CBDC panel: SWIFT may not exist in 5 years

Mastercard CEO Michael Miebach was speaking at a panel on central bank digital currencies when he stunned the audience by saying that he doesn't believe the international payments system SWIFT will exist in five years.

The panel was hosted by the Global Blockchain Business Council, a conference running adjacent to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. The conference has been boosted by the strong presence of crypto founders attending the WEF, including Indian CEOs such as CoinSwitch Kuber founder Ashish Singhal.

Responding to a question asking him whether he believed SWIFT would still be around in half a decade, CoinDesk reported that Miebach surprisingly said, "No."

Miebach elaborated on his statement by saying that if you can reduce the friction and costs associated with international payments today, then the goal is to implement these potential new technologies.

“If you can get a payment with all the data attached that you need as a company [...] the cost savings of that in addition to a payment cost that is lowered, and the overall productivity boost, we can expect if we do this well, that’s the real goal here,” Miebach said on the panel.

Blockchain technology has long been lauded for its ability to be used for this exact purpose.