SWIFT: Trusted infrastructure for infrastructures

Money and finance are a socio-economic infrastructure to which trust is integral. The account money form consists of distinct value and information components. The separate transmission of transaction information has enabled the expansion of trust in money across space. While most financial infrastructures store and transfer value, the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) is a critical infrastructure for infrastructures that transfers information about value as financial messages between banks and infrastructures internationally. The SWIFT financial messaging infrastructure is embedded in the organization of the same name, which is a cooperative, co-owned by member banks. SWIFT’s role as a community of practice, and features of shared infrastructure ownership, exclusivity, and cooperative governance, make it a club for banks. The club is a powerful means of engendering trust among competitor banks, allowing them to exercise joint strategic agency to maintain oligopolistic dominance. SWIFT’s predominance is tested by geopolitical and technological forces. This chapter analyses changes in response to mainly techno-organisational challenges.