Bank of China Ltd announced on Thursday it has completed the bank's first international payment transaction under the SWIFT's Global Payments Innovation initiative.

China's fourth largest commercial bank by assets said the initiative enhanced customer experience by shortening the time of international money transfers via Bank of China accounts to only a few minutes.

Twenty-one large banks worldwide, including Bank of China and Citi, participated as trial banks in the GPI program launched by SWIFT, a global provider of secure financial messaging services. Together they designed and followed the same business standards to achieve same day international money transfers, fee transparency, track the status of transfers and pass on complete information of transfers.