Our 2023 conference season has gotten off to a flying start and we are looking forward to the coming months of in-person conferences. To get us started, we attended Sibos in Toronto for the first time in several years. Attending Sibos and representing Axletree were:
- Mohan Murali – CEO
- Rekha Ramanan – SVP Operations
- Sindhura Rao – Global Head Product Development
- Robert Goldberg – Director, Relationship Management
Sibos was a great event with many exciting topics capturing the interest of attendees. It allowed us to connect with Swift members, partners, and service providers, and to gain some valuable insights that we would like to share with the Axletree community. Our core purpose continues to be providing our clients with peace of mind – in that vein, below we delve into some of the main topics of interest at Sibos that we hope you will also find valuable.
Important Themes at Sibos
There were some common themes and trends that we saw coming out of the conference that we feel reinforce the direction and strategy that Swift are adopting. These include:
Cloud-based solutions and APIs
Like many organizations, Swift’s goal is to optimize efficiency whilst retraining a high level of security and resiliency. To that end, they are actively working with service providers whose solutions provide a reduced footprint. Swift are embracing cloud native solutions and adopting APIs as a standard communication protocol. As part of Axletree’s strategy, we are targeting the migration of Symmetree to the cloud in Q4 2023. This will allow us to take advantage of the benefits of being in the cloud whilst retaining our focus on our any-to-any format translation and integration capabilities.
Complementors
Complementors are service providers whose services work alongside, or complement, those of Swift. Swift are nurturing the growth of complementor services to help enhance the capabilities of the Swift ecosystem. Symmetree by Axletree™ is a perfect example of a solution that acts as a complementor to Swift services.
Enablers
Enablers are service providers who enable Swift services to be consumed through their infrastructures. Axletree is classified as an enabler, as we have enabled Swift GPI and Pre-validation for our clients within our infrastructure. Swift sees these APIs as a significant value add within the financial transaction lifecycle and are actively promoting the use case for these services going forward. Swift’s community of APIs are also allowing enablers like Axletree to provide our clients with a full range of Swift services.
Swift Services
Swift provides a host of services designed to remove the friction from within the financial transaction lifecycle. While Axletree is actively enabling our clients to gain access to both GPI and pre-validation services, our infrastructure is also capable of supporting the following services:
RMA Portal Changes
Swift is migrating the RMA portal functionality to a centralized cloud RMA portal by the end of 2023. By 2024, the local RMA process will be decommissioned in favor of a centralized RMA portal on Swift’s cloud. By the simple submission of an authorization form to Swift, Axletree can help our clients by maintaining the RMA process on their behalf through our managed services team.
Other News
Exception Messages
A significant milestone along the ISO20022 migration journey will be reached in November 2024. This sees the start of the coexistence period of the CAMT110 and CAMT111, new exception messages. These represent the ISO20022 equivalent of the free format message types within the MT*99 series. Client should be aware of the start of the coexistence period, and the deadline to be fully ready for the decommissioning of MT category 1, 2, and 9 messages by November 2025. Axletree is fully equipped to help organizations plan and execute their ISO 20022 migration efforts, which we recommend organizations to begin as soon as possible.
AI
The growth of AI and ML in recent years has been a game changer in terms of analyzing and reporting on data within the financial services industry. Swift are no different. They view the richness of the data available within the ISO20022 format as an exciting platform for which AI may be leveraged to combat and prevent fraud.
Digital Currencies
Central Bank Digital Currencies are being adopted very fast. However, digital currencies will coexist with the FIAT Currencies in the short to medium term. There is still a considerable amount of work to be done as it relates to regulation and compliance. For these to gain adoption and traction, there must be consensus on governance, regulations and standards related to digital currencies.
All in all, we found that attending this year’s Sibos conference was extremely rewarding – we feel renewed confidence in the solutions we are able to provide to the financial industry, and in our ongoing mission to provide our clients with peace of mind.
October 11, 2023
