Can 6-Year-old Ripple compete with 45-Year-old Swift, or are they even competing?

In June 2018, the financial times (ft.com) featured an article stating how Ripple is a rival to the cross-border payment giant Swift by promising faster, cheaper and more reliable method for sending cross-border payments across the globe. The article also stated that Swift might also be looking to exploit blockchain technology itself shortly. You can read the article here. Our question is:

Are Ripple & Swift even Competing?

Ripple recently launched its product xRapid in its Swell Conference and claimed that 3 financial institutions, including MercuryFX, have even started using its products. Banks and financial institutions, a majority of which currently use SWIFT for all cross-border transactions might be looking forward to using xRapid now. But some hints in the past few days show that Ripple & Swift might just be working together and looking forward to launching as partners.

Coincidence: XRP price shot up near 21st September, the same day Swift launched its products

SWIFT launched 4 products on 21st September:

(According to their Release Timeline)

1. Alliance Access 7.3

2. Alliance Entry 7.3

3. SwiftNet Link 7.3

4. Alliance Gateway 7.3

XRP price was at a Bull run on 20, 21 September:

Coincidence: Swift & Ripple launching similar products

Coincidently, Swift and Ripple are launching the same products:

SwiftNet <-> RippleNet

SwiftLab <-> Ripple Labs

xRapid and SwiftNet offer instant settlements

Are Swift and Ripple competing?

What do you think? Tell us in the comments section below.