SWIFT Network - Asset Identifiers

CAIP-19

For context, see the CAIP-19 specification.

Rationale

A common data model was needed to represent fiat balances in multichain networks, and rather than invent an arbitrary new one, using SWIFT/ISO notation seemed more forward-compatible. As no SWIFT namespace was yet defined, an “empty” one with a special-case for off-network/out-of-band usage, “chainId 0”, was added and ISO 4217 codes were used for internationally-recognized fiat currencies and notations.

Syntax

The fiat currency standard used across most modern SWIFT tooling and accounting systems is ISO 4217, which assigns a 3-letter code to each national currency on Earth, as well as a few supranational ones (EUR for the Euro), and a special category, all prefixed with X, for major rare metals. The 3-letter codes are here capitalized, following the legacy convention.

The template for validating these namespace is as follows:

chain_id:       "swift:" + network_id + "/iso4217:" + currencycode
network_id:     0 for off-network usage or TBD for specific SWIFT networks
currencycode:   [A-Z]{3}

Other asset standards (such as the ISO 15022 standard for securities accounting or the more verbose ISO 20022 data model for assets) may be specified at a later time, pending community interest.

Test Cases

# Euro (€)
swift:0/iso4217:EUR

# US Dollar ($)
swift:0/iso4217:USD

# Argentine Peso ($)
swift:0/iso4217:ARS

References

• ISO 4217:2015: Identifier scheme for national and extranational fiat currencies
• ISO 4217 Registry: Current list of current and historical 4217 currency codes

Rights

Copyright and related rights waived via CC0.

Citation

Please cite this document as:

Bumblefudge, Daniel Rocha, "namespaces/swift-caip19: SWIFT Network - Asset Identifiers [DRAFT]," Chain Agnostic Namespaces, swift-caip19, January 2025 / January 2025. [Online serial]. Available: https://github.com/ChainAgnostic/namespaces/swift-caip19.md