“Swift should have been more aggressive pushing the payments revolution forward,” said Jacqmotte, when considering how long it’s taken the smaller banks to comply with Swift’s stipulation that anyone connecting to its global interbank payments network must use ISO 20022 messaging by 22nd November 2025.
That is when the Cross-Border Payments and Reporting Plus (CBPR+) coexistence period catering for its older MT payment instructions finally ends. A new era of better XML-based messaging for payments traffic, with extra characters and new data-rich carrying possibilities, is finally beginning.
End-to-end tracking, payment confirmation and other data that can be fed into trade finance releases, deliver better cash recognition and liquidity management tools at treasuries and so on are all to be welcomed. But they are only possible if the corporate or its bank partner is set up to harness the new capabilities of the enhanced ISO 20022 messaging standard. Being able to digest the data accordingly and flow it into enterprise resource planning (ERP) and other treasury systems is crucial on the corporate end as well.
ISO 20022
It has taken a long time for the banks to get to this ISO 20022 jump off point, to the frustration of many treasurers, including Jacqmotte, who joined the corporate treasury stream on Wednesday 1st October at Sibos 2025, to discuss ISO 20022 and the many other ‘hot topics’ evident at the show this year, alongside fellow panellists:
To be fair, Swift is a bank-owned collective that can only be as fast as its slowest members. This has impeded ISO 20022 adoption. The financial market infrastructure (FMI) itself and most of the big banks long ago implemented ISO 20022 messaging.
Borealis’ treasurer, Jacqmotte, also meant his rebuke for banks and Swift to act quicker as a general plea for finance colleagues to help treasurers do more with emerging technology in the future. This is especially relevant as treasurers seek to deal with the many new challenges evident in the evolving payments revolution, where real-time and data-centric capabilities are increasingly needed.
The emerging fully digitalised payment landscape comes with a more complicated ecosystem as well. Many fintech-enabled third-party processors are entering the marketplace and linking to FMIs and the banks who cooperate with them. Real-time instant payment drivers, as personified in the EU Instant Payments Regulation (IPR) and G20 Roadmap are additionally impacting liquidity norms and 24×7 payment and settlement availability.
Then there are new payment instruments such as Stablecoins, digital mobile money-based options; new tax and sanction reporting regulations on treasurers themselves; and rising levels of fraud – all of which were front of mind for treasurers attending Sibos 2025. Navigating a more complicated and digitalised environment is not easy.
IT drivers and the rise of APIs
“The corporate treasury role itself has changed,” added Jacqmotte, during the Sibos 2025 conference session, especially as cash management becomes more and more automated. Borealis has a payment factory (PF) in Belgium, for example, and a shared service centre (SSC) in Romania to reduce its operational costs.
“Treasury is a lot more dependent on technology than when I first joined the profession,” he said. “Now, you’re seeing IT people come into the field, not just accountants. We need good external partners more and more as well, but also good internal IT capabilities.”
“Application programming interfaces (APIs) can help connectivity in this increasingly digitised environment, and as a means of easier data exchange,” added Jacqmotte, demonstrating that he has mastered the new technological demands of his profession, although he did admit to still using Excel occasionally.
“Multibank capabilities and standardisation [as in the case of the ISO 20022 migration – Ed.] are crucial requirements for a modern treasury,” added Jacqmotte. “These are core functions for any treasury, driving efficiencies and never change.” Other core job responsibilities he cited included:
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Liquidity management.
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Foreign exchange (FX) mitigation and risk reduction, especially prevalent in this era of geopolitical tension, exacerbated by the war in Ukraine, President Trump’s tariffs, and other such factors.
The latter two liquidity and FX mitigation necessities were shared by the Sibos 2025 conference session moderator, Swift’s Rojas, alongside multibank abilities, as key findings in some research that Swift unveiled at this year’s trade show. It investigated what treasurers want via a survey among practitioners. It also highlighted smart payment routing capabilities as a key corporate treasurer desire.
Treasurers are keen to learn how to best deal with the proliferating instant payment rails emerging globally as well – and to find the best low-cost processing corridors. How to accommodate the numerous different types of new payment mechanisms, from QR codes to cryptocurrencies in the future – even from a central bank (CBDC) iteration – was also an issue keeping treasurers awake at night. The
imminent digital euro, which was much discussed at the event in Frankfurt, shows what is coming down the track.
Swift research highlights fraud concern
The main aim of Swift’s research with multinational corporations (MNCs), unveiled at Sibos 2025, was to identify the value proposition in harnessing new payment processing options and fintech-enabled partners, whether banks or not, and to find out what is worrying treasurers. Fraud was a clear additional concern. The aforementioned desire for standardisation via ISO 20022 universal adoption was also evident in the findings, as was the need for easier access to end-to-end tracking and payment confirmation capabilities, which aid liquidity management.
“Treasurers want to get away from bank lock-in and any hidden fees as well,” said Swift’s session moderator, Rojas, which is an especially prevalent problem among beneficiary banks. “Fraud was a rising concern because the levels of it are going up.”
As a potential solution, naturally Rojas pointed to Swift’s federated data anti-fraud solution that uses AI in collaboration with banking partners as a way to try and stop rising fraud levels. The solution shares federated data in the same way that criminals do on the dark web, but with privacy-enhancing capabilities that feed into an artificial intelligence (AI) that can spot anomalies and highlight any potential problems. Ditto the potential of Swift’s new blockchain-based ledger, unveiled at Sibos 2025 in Frankfurt this year was also mentioned in this corporate treasury-focused session, as yet another collaborative option that can deliver new constant availability and data possibilities in the fast evolving cross-border payment arena.
EBA Clearing’s rival Fraud Pattern and Anomaly Detection (FPAD) solution is another option in the anti-fraud arena for treasurers to be aware of. It too uses the show ‘hot topic’ of AI and federated data on which to feed on, as a way to seek out anomalies and impede criminals. FPAD’s bank collective solution provides fraud-fighting functionality to payment flows on the STEP2-T and RT1 payment processing platforms in Europe, and on other EBA Clearing assets.
Real-time equals less time for fraud detection
According to fellow Sibos 2025 panellist, BBVA’s corporate payments lead, Laghmich, regulation, compliance and reputational threats are also key concerns for treasurers. Indeed, their bank partners worry about this too, especially in this era of proliferating real-time drivers.
Faster payments and settlement mean there is less time available for fraud detection, or to meet other reporting and compliance demands. Conversely, of course, there are many more opportunities for treasurers to sweep and concentrate money faster than ever before in this real-time era to deliver better liquidity optimisation, so there are pros and cons to the trend.
“Some regulatory requirements are shifting on to corporates themselves now as well,” added BBVA’s Laghmich, alluding to enhanced ESG ‘green’ reporting demands, tax transparency, anti-money laundering (AML) demands and so. “This often mean that corporates need more support from their bank.”
There is no doubt that rising anti-fraud and enhanced reporting and compliance requirements are key concerns. This was evident in the Swift research discussed during the Sibos corporate treasury-specific panel debate, and indeed throughout the show this year, where cybersecurity was much discussed among all participants.
“AI and stablecoins are the other ‘hot topics’ I’ve noticed at Sibos this year,” said fellow panellist, Melissa Di Donato, CEO of Kyriba, who added that the coalescence of new real-time and data-centric capabilities with new entrants to the payment processing marketplace promised a coming revolution.
When this is allied to the general digitalisation trend we are seeing and the emergence of new payment mechanisms it puts extra demands on treasurers. Di Donato concluded: “We are on the precipice of monumental change.” Best get ready for the payments revolution.
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