Swift Innovation Chief: Governance Is as Important as Technology for Tokenized Financial Networks

November 9 — According to Swift's official website, Nick Kerrigan, Managing Director and Head of Innovation at Swift, wrote that whether tokenized financial infrastructure succeeds depends at least as much on governance design as on technology. The article cites a 2024 working paper by Awrey, Macey and Zhang: payment networks need to strike a balance among three objectives — stability, access and investment — and the hardest part of maintaining that balance is governance, not technology. Kerrigan said that as institutions accelerate their adoption of blockchain, governance structures such as foundations and member councils are coming back into focus. Successful networks typically share three characteristics: representativeness, accountability and sustainable investment. In his view, governance should be judged by outcomes, not by structure.