The global financial messaging service platform SWIFT has said 22 large banks, including Westpac, have joined its blockchain proof of concept (PoC) for cross-border payments, set up by six banks earlier this year. Australia and New Zealand Banking Group, BNP Paribas, BNY Mellon, DBS Bank, RBC Royal Bank and Wells Fargo were among the first group of banks participating in the PoC"ANZ is delighted to be participating in this multilateral PoC with SWIFT, having already completed a bilateral proof in 3Q 2016. We see this as the next logical step to scaling a [distributed ledger technology] solution for nostro reconciliation, which in turn will bring significant fulfilment benefits to our customers at the same time as simplifying our operational processes," Nigel Dobson, ANZ general manager, wholesale digital, said when the PoC was announced in April.Dobson added that the group hoped to realise additional benefits for wholesale liquidity management, with the aim of lowering costs and better managing risk across the SWIFT community. More specifically, as SWIFT explained on its website, the PoC is designed to test whether the DLT technology will allow banks to reconcile their international nostro accounts in real time. Working independently of the six founding banks, the 22 other financial institutions will act as a validation group to further evaluate how the technology scales and performs, SWIFT said. Currently, banks cannot monitor their account positions in real time due to lack of intraday reporting coverage, leading to inefficient use of managed funds throughout the business day. The results of the tests will be announced in September and presented SWIFT's Sibos conference in October.