Sibos 24: striking a balance

Striking a balance between innovation and safety in the payment ecosystem is front of mind in the industry, as the growing demand for near-real-time payments brushes up against an increasing focus on security and resilience.

That search is likely to be a key theme of discussion at the 2024 Sibos conference in Beijing in October, particularly with the recent CrowdStrike-related system outage still fresh in the minds of many businesses around the world, and the cost of cybercrime expected to rise to almost $US14 trillion a year by 2028.

Business continuity is critical in an era of digital payments, especially with so many already on the path toward real-time treasury. The damage an extended outage can do – even if just a few hours – has businesses scouring their systems end to end, as well as speaking to vendors and other participants to better understand potential vulnerabilities or weak points.

In that context, the theme for this year’s Sibos, “connecting the future of finance”, takes on a new meaning around the importance of ensuring that connection is secure and resilient. At ANZ, we’re expecting to have conversations with fellow attendees at the conference around what we can all be doing as an industry to support each other around fraud and cyber resilience, in a bid to ensure the sector is as secure as it can be.

Data, in the context of the ISO 20022 standardisation approach, will also be a key theme of the conference. The payments sector is in the process of a significant shift from ‘traditional’ payment messaging types towards a new, data-rich standard. The industry is currently in a coexistence phase, but that’s due to expire in November 2025.

With many banks having made the switch, or well down the road to doing so, the focus is slowly turning to how financial-service providers can bring that data to their clients. Implementation has been a key focus for a long time now, however, the real value for all participants will be found in how that messaging data can be used in the future.

The current geopolitical situation won’t be far from the minds of particpants at Sibos in 2024, nor will transformational technology like generative artificial intelligence, digitisation or tokenisation. How that tech can be used safely and effectively is sure to be a theme of heavy discussion.

Setting the stage

The upcoming Sibos will be the 11th I have attended. The four-day conference is known for setting the agenda for the industry, and attracts thousands of participants from across the globe every year – from banks, non-banks, vendors and regulators.

ANZ will be in attendance, with representatives from our financial institution and transaction banking business, as well as members of our technology and financial crime teams. But this is no holi­day: each delegate will attend between eight and 12 meetings a day, across the four days, typically around 45 minutes each in length – and that doesn’t include informal catchups on the sidelines.

For ANZ, our presence at the Sibos conference is centred on our customers. Sibos provides an opportunity to really connect with our clients – to sit down with them, listen to what they see as emerging trends; what they are worried about, or excited for; give and receive feedback.

The structure of the conference enables attendees to really build on our relationships with our clients. While modern communication technology is great, meeting in person allows our bankers to really invest in those customer relationships and support our clients better than we ever could over a Zoom call.

That Beijing is the host of this year’s Sibos is no small matter for ANZ, which is treating it like a ‘home’ Sibos, much in the same way we did when the event was hosted in Sydney in 2018. ANZ’s presence in Asia give us a network advantage over our domestic peers, and an event like this is an opportunity to showcase that.

Bringing it home

Sibos is the place those in the sector go to get a read on the latest emerging ideas in the industry; where cutting-edge innovation is showcased and shared among customers and competitors alike.

It’s often where theory meets reality, and emerging technology is explained and showcased in actual, practical use cases - cases banks like ANZ can bring home from the conference and apply to their own customers. It’s also an opportunity for the industry to come together and address pain points in the sector as a community.

The most important thing for attendees is making sure we do the follow up work. At ANZ, we’re very conscious of bringing back those insights and sharing them with our colleagues at large, and really making sure we follow through for our clients.

And finally, a key reason for ANZ’s presence at Sibos is to demonstrate the bank’s ongoing commitment to the region, and the payments, and trade and clearing business. While the focus of others in these markets may change, ANZ has been a consistent presence in this sector. We’ve invested in our people and our technology to get to the market-leading position we are in today, with 60 per cent market share in clearing services in Australia and New Zealand.

We’re looking forward to seeing our clients at Sibos, and speaking with them about the opportunities and challenges that await the sector in 2025 and beyond.

Sean Rowe is Head of Banks, FIG, Australia at ANZ Institutional