Swift, the financial messaging service for the world's biggest banks, is partnering with blockchain start-up R3. Gottfried Leibbrandt, Swift's chief executive, said the institution would integrate R3's trade finance platform with its new payments standards framework GPI, or Global Payments Innovation. "We are announcing later today a proof-of-concept with the R3 blockchain on trade where you can initiate a payment on the trade platform and then it goes into GPI," Leibbrandt said at a CNBC-hosted panel session on Wednesday. "We're exploring interconnectivity with a lot of things and banks have always been a part of ... (full story)