October 2025
Deutsche Bank named the Technical Challenge winner of the Swift Hackathon 2025
Deutsche Bank’s winning solution – the Digital/Fiat Currencies Interlink Bridge – uses the global ISO 20022 standard to enable seamless cross-border transfers between CBDCs, digital currencies and fiat
With more than 100 teams competing globally, this year’s Swift Hackathon technical challenge invited teams to develop solutions that use ISO 20022 to enhance interoperability for cross-currency, cross-network payment flows.
As the exchange of value expands beyond traditional payment rails into digital assets and tokenised instruments – including the rise of stablecoins and central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) – the challenge of interoperability between diverse infrastructures and networks is moving to the forefront.
Achieving seamless integration across these systems is essential to uphold the same levels of transparency and regulatory oversight seen in conventional payment networks, particularly as frameworks such as the FATF Travel Rule1 and the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA)2 continue to evolve.
“Banks can play a pivotal role in enriching transactions with existing KYC data”
“In a traditional banking system know your customer [KYC] is already tied to the primary account, but in digital currency networks that visibility often disappears. Yet as soon as transactions cross networks, regulatory frameworks like the Travel Rule demand transparency,” explains Chris Bezuidenhout, CIO Cash Management at Deutsche Bank. “Banks can play a pivotal role not only in enriching transactions with existing KYC data, but also in performing real-time screening and compliance checks to ensure secure and compliant value exchange without compromising innovation.”
In recent years, Deutsche Bank has been doing a lot of work involving Swift APIs, including going live with Swift’s Instant Cash Reporting (ICR) solution and carrying out a proof of concept focusing on FIN, FileAct and other protocols.
The Hackathon provided an additional opportunity to explore and propose what an interoperable digital currency ecosystem could look like.
The resulting Deutsche Bank solution, Digital/Fiat Currencies Interlink Bridge, enables interoperable transfers and settlement of CBDCs and digital currencies across jurisdictions, complete with compliance checks and real-time tracking.
“The whole idea was to keep it integrated into the current banking ecosystem and make it as seamless and transparent as possible for clients – all while solving real-world challenges,” says Andrey Ovchinnikov, CIO Client Connectivity at Deutsche Bank.
The architecture enriches ISO 20022 messages with new data fields for blockchain-native identifiers, wallet addresses, transaction hashes and token IDs – supporting both traditional and digital-asset flows. The prototype also demonstrates automated KYC, legal entity identifier verification, FX conversion and blockchain validation workflows.
“Winning the Swift Hackathon Technical Challenge demonstrates that we are in the same league as a lot of world-class fintechs, and are able to deliver innovative and modern solutions,” adds Ovchinnikov. “It’s a great achievement, and everyone who worked on the project can be proud of what we have done.”
Rajin Kumar, Vice President, Product Owner Swift Messaging Technology, Deutsche Bank presents the winning solution
Images: © Swift