This is the best way I've found to instantiate a view from a nib in Swift.

UIView+NibLoading.swift

//
//  UIView+NibLoading.swift
//  Sam Dods on 29/10/2015.
//

import UIKit

/// Protocol to be extended with implementations
protocol UIViewLoading {}

/// Extend UIView to declare that it includes nib loading functionality
extension UIView : UIViewLoading {}

/// Protocol implementation
extension UIViewLoading where Self : UIView {
  
  /**
  Creates a new instance of the class on which this method is invoked,
  instantiated from a nib of the given name. If no nib name is given
  then a nib with the name of the class is used.
  
  - parameter nibNameOrNil: The name of the nib to instantiate from, or
  nil to indicate the nib with the name of the class should be used.
  
  - returns: A new instance of the class, loaded from a nib.
  */
  static func loadFromNib(nibNameOrNil: String? = nil) -> Self {
    let nibName = nibNameOrNil ?? self.className
    let nib = UINib(nibName: nibName, bundle: nil)
    return nib.instantiateWithOwner(nil, options: nil).first as! Self
  }
  
  static private var className: String {
    let className = "\(self)"
    let components = className.characters.split{$0 == "."}.map ( String.init )
    return components.last!
  }
  
}