The financial sector’s calendar is marked by several significant events, and Sibos, organised by Swift, stands out among them. Since its inception in Brussels in 1978, the event has spanned continents, reaching cities like Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Sydney, and Boston.
Toronto hosted the 2017 edition, and now Sibos is back in Canada from 18 to 21 September 2023 at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre (MTCC). Nestled in the heart of downtown Toronto, the MTCC provides not just a logistical advantage, but also situates attendees in a vibrant mix of business and cultural hubs.
This year’s theme, ‘Collaborative finance in a fragmented world’, intends to address current financial dynamics. Topics up for discussion include sustainable finance, risk management in an unpredictable landscape, and the relationship between advancing technology and trust.
Today we bring you a roundup of updates announced on day one of Sibos 2023 conference.
Swift and Wise collaborate to expand global cross-border payment options
Swift and Wise unveiled a strategic collaboration to enhance cross-border payment options for financial institutions and their customers. This partnership enables payments initiated through Swift to seamlessly complete via Wise’s Correspondent Services offering, ensuring end-to-end transparency and efficiency.
Financial institutions can leverage this solution to provide their customers with the speed and convenience of Wise without making major changes to their existing systems. Wise will harness Swift’s advanced capabilities, including cloud and API connectivity, to enhance its services and maintain the hallmark features of Swift GPI.
This collaboration signifies a broader relationship and addresses the growing demand for diverse cross-border payment options amid financial ecosystem innovation and fragmentation. It aligns with G20 and UN Sustainable Development goals, emphasising the importance of secure, reliable, and inclusive connectivity for cross-border transactions.
Steve Naudé, managing director of Wise Platform, said: “We know that banks face a number of challenges when it comes to enhancing their international payments, including that this often requires them to embed technology which is incompatible with legacy infrastructure.
“By simultaneously leveraging existing payments architecture and optimising payouts using Wise’s global network, we are empowering banks to innovate effortlessly. Our network, combined with Swift’s extensive reach and trackability, will make international payments more convenient, faster and lower cost for banks, without necessitating a major tech build.”
Intellect launches iGTB Copilot
Intellect Global Transaction Banking (iGTB) has introduced iGTB Copilot, a suite of AI solutions for commercial and corporate banking. This collaboration with Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service leverages AI technologies, including machine learning and deep learning, for tasks such as cash management, payments, and risk management.
iGTB Copilot’s goal is to enhance customer experiences, productivity, and data security within the enterprise banking sphere.
One highlight is iGTB Copilot for Payments, currently in trials with global Tier 1 banks. It extracts insights from ISO20022 Payments messages, enabling instant communication to expedite issue resolution, improve customer support, and identify cross-selling opportunities. This development is part of iGTB’s broader mission to empower banks to offer enhanced services to their corporate clients.
Banks seek low code solutions to offset revenue losses reveals Celent
A Celent survey of Tier 1 banks in North America and Europe, released at Sibos, indicates that software developer capacity constraints have impacted banks’ payment revenues by an estimated five per cent over the past two years.
To address this challenge, many banks are turning to ‘low code’ tools and platforms to expedite the delivery of revenue-generating services while maintaining control of development processes. Low code involves using pre-built components to create or modify software through a visual interface, reducing the need for manual coding and increasing developer productivity.
The research reveals that 90 per cent of banks plan to implement low code for non-card payments in the near future, recognising its potential to overcome capacity limitations and drive innovation in payment processing.
The survey also highlights that despite a high-interest rate environment, 61 per cent of banks are finding it increasingly challenging to maintain margins due to evolving customer expectations, regulatory demands, and new competitors. These margin challenges are exacerbated by limited developer capacity, leading banks to explore low code solutions to enhance efficiency and agility in their payment processing operations.
Banque Delubac & Cie empowers instant payments with Finastra
Banque Delubac & Cie, an independent financial institution, has launched its instant payments offering with Finastra’s scalable SaaS solution. This move enables the bank to provide other financial institutions access to Europe’s TARGET Instant Payments Settlements (TIPS) while enhancing its agility to respond to evolving market demands.
The solution facilitates instant payments but also drives innovation, reduces operational costs, and positions the bank for business growth, ensuring it meets the increasing customer expectations for seamless, secure, and 24/7 payment services.
The bank says Finastra’s Payments To Go not only aligns with the bank’s commitment to provide instant payments but also offers scalability and agility to enhance user experiences and stay competitive in the market.
Citi introduces Citi Token Services for institutional clients
Citi Treasury and Trade Solutions (TTS) has launched Citi Token Services for cash management and trade finance, employing blockchain and smart contract technologies.
This initiative aims to provide digital asset solutions to institutional clients by integrating tokenised deposits and smart contracts into Citi’s global network, offering cross-border payments, liquidity, and automated trade finance on a 24/7 basis.
The pilot programme demonstrated the potential to reduce transaction processing times significantly and introduced programmable transfer of tokenised deposits, contributing to the development of real-time transaction banking services.
Citi’s ongoing efforts in digital asset solutions are aligned with its goals and risk appetite, utilising unified technology capabilities and a common strategic approach. These solutions enhance Citi’s offerings, including digital money, trade, securities, custody, asset servicing and collateral mobility.
