Financial messaging service provider Swift is recruiting banks and other financial institutions to join its ongoing blockchain project on research and development, CoinDesk reported.

The announcement was made by Stephen Grainger, the company’s head of sales for North America, during a meet that took place at Swift’s headquarters in New York that saw an audience of major banks, financial institutions and media firms. He said that an official major announcement will be made soon with regards to the blockchain initiative.

The recruits will include banks that have strong liquidity practices for its proof of concept (PoC) that are aimed in replacing the present account system of settling cross border payments, Swift stated.

“There’s a framework for how banks will sign up to that and we’ll make a further announcement towards the end of Q1 about who will participate in that process,” Grainger told the audience during the meet, as reported by CoinDesk.

The blockchain PoC participants will see a higher rate of return to shareholders, by eliminating the latent foreign exchange reserves that are held on the books of other banks. Swift expects that, post the release of its criteria guidelines, around 100 banks would apply to join the blockchain project.