Last week, SIBOS, an annual conference organized by SWIFT for the financial industry was hosted in our own backyard, Toronto. Thousands of representatives from around the world took part in the four-day event, the theme being ‘Building for the Future‘.
Content centered around four main streams: banking, compliance, securities and technology. Under those streams, topics included the future of banking, regulatory changes, technological advances and their impact on financial services, and new regulations in today’s political climate.
Key Takeaways
My schedule included presentations on cyber security, ISO 20022, artificial intelligence, APIs in financial services and open banking. There was a lot to take in, but here are some key takeaways:
- The rate of change in the payments industry is continuing to accelerate, that is a given and is not going to change for some time.
- All banks are embracing new technologies and are all deeply invested in driving new solutions to market.
- Real time payments may be a game-changer, but the real action is going to be in delivering competitive, market leading value propositions. In many aspects, the market in general needs to go through a learning curve on how to leverage modernized infrastructure to deliver value to the market, and then to build next generation digital customer experiences that truly harness the benefits of modernization.
- Some businesses are ahead of the pack, but are always reminded that the payments industry moves at its own pace, and requires a risk averse mindset.
Interac Presentations
Peter Maoloni, AVP, Online Products and Platforms, presented with nanopay to show how fintech companies can work with incumbents to innovate and bring new experiences for the market.
We had a great time at #SibosCanada today. Peter Maoloni spoke with @nano_Pay about creating a culture of innovation through collaboration. pic.twitter.com/KlXYrCjBgT
— INTERAC (@INTERAC) October 19, 2017
Our AVP for Mobile Product and Platform Development Oscar Roque presented a demo with IBM and Alectra Utilities to show how Blockchain can be used to trade energy. The demo featured a solution using the open source Hyperledger Fabric, part of The Linux Foundation project.
