What the coming changes at SWIFT mean for your company

With SWIFT’s discontinuation of its IPLA and SIL middleware tools, businesses need to decide how to navigate the transition.

When it comes to cross-border payments, the financial messaging network run by SWIFT is the biggest game in town. Now, the organization is making good on its vision for an open API economy in financial services. By doing so, it’s encouraging the 11,500 member institutions that use its platform to modernize along with it.

At the heart of the transition are technology changes within the SWIFT network itself. In June 2026, the organization will discontinue support for two key pieces of middleware that facilitate communications between payment hubs and the SWIFT network: the Alliance Access Integration Platform (IPLA) and the SWIFT Integration Layer (SIL).

Instead of using IPLA and SIL, participating institutions will be given the chance to communicate directly with SWIFT’s cloud-based service (first introduced in 2020), using messaging APIs. This will eliminate the need for the local, on-premises infrastructure that many of SWIFT’s high-volume users rely on.

One trigger for this change is software maker Red Hat’s decision to end support for a core SIL component in mid-2026. Other influences include adoption of the ISO 20022 global standard for instant payments, which legacy systems like SIL aren’t fully equipped to support. Perhaps most important is the rise of API-driven ecosystems that are spurring payment hub modernization everywhere.

The news is important because SWIFT’s network includes not just banks and financial institutions but also a wide range of corporations that rely on international payments.

What does moving away from IPLA/SIL mean for organizations?

But while migrating to a replacement solution will be mandatory, using SWIFT’s cloud service and messaging APIs won’t. Businesses will need to choose between rewriting code from scratch, working with providers that offer custom integration configurations and taking the cloud-based API approach.

Whether the move to cloud is right for your company—and the level of difficulty it will present—depends on how the change aligns with your business strategy as well as issues of infrastructure, message volume and internal system complexity.

Top considerations for the SWIFT migration

We’ve identified three things businesses need to consider before upgrading or replacing their SWIFT solutions.

1. Strategic analysis. While there’s no question that the global financial payments world is moving away from on-premises technology to systems that are based on cloud and open APIs, the first step for any SWIFT member institution is to determine whether cloud migration is the right move for their payments ecosystem.
   
   Questions to ask include how will not converting the payment integration layer to an API solution impact your future? One answer to this question lies in message volumes.
   
   While APIs are generally well-suited for various scenarios, including handling high message volumes for complex payment processing ecosystems, careful design and implementation are crucial to ensure they remain scalable and efficient.
   
   APIs can be a good solution if designed with considerations for resource consumption and performance. However, without proper mitigation strategies like API throttling, high volumes of requests can overwhelm servers, degrade performance and lead to service outages.
   
   At the same time, modernizing data environments is a key objective for any business involved in international payments. If your organization operates using message queues and events in batches, you may want to consider adoption of an API-based replacement. 
   
   
2. Execution of the replacement layer. Consider your target operating model. What’s the best SWIFT solution to support the type of architecture you want to have in two to three years? Careful thought must be given to streamlining processes that support rich features like message tagging and dynamic workflows.
   
   Other critical considerations include the design of payment controls to manage flows efficiently while ensuring compliance. Businesses also need to think about how much of the orchestration and data transformation function needs to be handled in the integration layer vs. in the payment hub itself.
   
   
3. What's ahead? How ready is your organization for what’s next in cross-border payments in the future? Your strategy needs to align with the industry’s future state.

Migrating to the future of SWIFT

The decommissioning of IPLA and SIL isn’t just a sunset of legacy tools—it’s a signal that the cross-border payments ecosystem is undergoing foundational change. For payment leaders, this is a rare chance to realign infrastructure with long-term strategy, move away from outdated integrations and embrace a more flexible, API-enabled future.

But with SWIFT’s 2026 deadline fast approaching, the window for proactive planning is closing. Decisions made over the next six to 12 months will determine how smoothly your institution transitions and how well-positioned you are to capitalize on future innovations.

If you haven’t already, now is the time to assess your current architecture, define your target operating model, and engage your technology and business teams in a future-focused roadmap.

Cognizant is a designated complementor of SWIFT for SIL/IPLA replacement and adoption of SWIFT Alliance Cloud. We specialize in SWIFT applications like SAA, SAG, AMH and provide services to help financial institutions transition from IPLA/SIL to modern integration methods, including cloud-based and API-driven approaches.