most people talk about replacing SWIFT. but on the ground, payment teams are still asking for SWIFT support every day while stablecoin rails can be faster, cheaper, and offer real-time transparency, they don’t address the institutional dependencies that define how international payments actually work today. treasury workflows, ERP integrations, audit protocols, and regulatory reporting requirements are still deeply anchored to the infrastructure SWIFT has standardized, especially its messaging formats. over $150 trillion flows through SWIFT annually. and while stablecoins settled ~$2.4 trillion in payment volume over the last three months, most enterprise finance teams still rely on structured payment messages to reconcile funds, meet internal control requirements, and satisfy auditors. take MT103 and MT202 messages. they’re the structured language that banks, auditors, and financial systems use to define and verify a payment. MT103 provides line-item detail for single customer credit transfers: who sent the money, to whom, when, why, and how much. MT202, by contrast, facilitates transfers between financial institutions. they show up in SOC audits, ERP logs, and vendor compliance checks across global operations. global payments are built on messages, not “rails” per say. moving money from point A to B isn’t enough. enterprises also need to produce documentation that satisfies finance, compliance, and counterparties. and for most institutions, that still means SWIFT. that’s why @beam_cash was built to interoperate. we support both first- and third-party SWIFT flows, while also offering options like stablecoins, RTP, push-to-card, and ACH. global payments used to be defined by access. for decades, the primary challenge was gaining connectivity to the right rails. wiring up to SWIFT, negotiating bank relationships, and integrating with regional payment networks. speed was a differentiator. if you could move money into more markets, faster than your competitors, you had an edge. but that dynamic has changed. access is now commoditized. stablecoins offer permissionless global reach. APIs abstract away once-complex integrations. dozens of providers now offer real-time, cross-border connectivity. simply being "on the rail" no longer sets you apart. what matters is how you use the rails: which ones you choose, how you sequence them, and how you manage exceptions and compliance along the way. as stablecoins and traditional finance converge, teams are moving from asking “which rail should we use?” to “which rail is right for this transaction?” right now, it’s still SWIFT for the most part in xb transactions, but that’s changing quickly