How can banks capitalize on the sunset of Swift integration solutions like IPLA and SIL?

Swift, the world’s leading provider of secure financial messaging services, continues to demonstrate its critical role in the global financial ecosystem. Swift's migration from the legacy ISO 15022-based MT (message type) standard to the globally adopted ISO 20022 MX (message XML format) standard is nearing completion, with November 2025 marking the end, for the most part, of MT for payments messaging.

While MT will still be allowed, its use for payments will come at a cost for banks due to the need for conversion. However, MT message formats will continue to be central for foreign exchange, derivatives, and trade-related financial data transfer.

How will Swift’s future proofing impact current technology?

The last few years have seen a relentless pace of technology innovation, particularly in areas like AI, cloud computing, cryptography-based distributed ledger technology, and quantum computing. This presents both opportunities and challenges for CTOs and CIOs across the banking sector.

Even for Swift, recent years have seen a notable technology evolution in its network connectivity mechanisms, including the move from X.25 to IP-based protocols (SwiftNet), and, more recently, to cloud-to-cloud connectivity and standardized API-connected central services.

This technology evolution is rendering Swift’s legacy integration solutions obsolete. In 2024, Swift announced the end of support for its Alliance Access Integration Platform (IPLA) and Swift Integration Layer (SIL) solutions, effectively giving just one year for users to find alternatives. While this decision is driven by the sunsetting of a core component, Red Hat Fuse, it distinctly signals Swift's strategic shift toward cloud-native solutions and API integration with new services.

The sunset of these widely used integration solutions presents a significant challenge for financial institutions currently using them.

How will the sunset of IPLA and SIL solutions impact participants?

IPLA and SIL solutions have been critical for many banks connecting to Swift interface applications, providing complex integration to back-office systems. They also have enabled orchestration and message handling validation and transformation for traffic over the Swift network.

With banks typically connecting to multiple networks across various business lines, the sunsetting of IPLA and SIL solutions has prompted many financial institutions to consider consolidating their network connectivity into a central messaging application, an action that needs to take place ahead of the 2026 sunsetting of these applications. This approach offers distinct operational advantages and the potential for reduced day-to-day operational costs.

The increasing adoption of cloud infrastructure by banks, along with the rise of cloud-native, microservices-architected solutions, provides financial institutions with flexible deployment options, including public, private, or hybrid cloud models. As Swift moves toward cloud-to-cloud connectivity, banks that choose this option when replacing IPLA and SIL solutions will be well-positioned to leverage new Swift services rapidly.

Steps for addressing the sunset of IPLA and SIL solutions

Current IPLA users are now having to quickly assess how they address the challenge of replacing a crucial component of their Swift message processing infrastructure. In addition to ensuring any potential replacement solution delivers at least the existing functionality, banks have an excellent opportunity to review their wider Swift processing architecture through deployment of a new interface that will provide not only full replacement but also create opportunities for wider efficiencies.

As such, banks can rationalize their infrastructure with a modern cloud-ready Swift interface that encompasses message creation, validation, transformation and routing capabilities, as well enable rationalization of a range of market connections across international and domestic payments activities.

Finding the right partner

CGI has been a leader in financial messaging for nearly 50 years, supporting hundreds of banks with solutions that connect to Swift and other central market infrastructures like CLS and global RTGS systems.

CGI’s Gateway Messaging Module, a component of the CGI All Payments platform, is a fully certified Swift interface. It covers the complete range of Swift network services (FIN, InterAct, FileAct, Realtime) across traditional Swift Alliance Gateway (SAG), cloud-to-cloud, and API connections. It offers financial institutions the capability to manage messaging traffic to other payment and settlement mechanisms, providing a centralized platform for network connectivity.

Cloud-native and agnostic, microservices-architected, and with native support for ISO 20022 data, this solution is helping banks future-proof their Swift messaging requirements, enabling swift (pun intended) leverage of new services. As a direct replacement for IPLA and SIL, it also offers capabilities equivalent to Swift Alliance Access (SAA), providing wider Swift messaging consolidation possibilities.

To discuss how CGI can support your transition and enhance your financial messaging capabilities, please contact me.