Introduction
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Sibos is getting close to its 40th anniversary and returns to Toronto after five years. The annual conference, organized by SWIFT since 1978, is expanding its horizons in terms of topics to be discussed. Attendance is also growing: The 300 participants of the first meeting in Brussels are now less than the attendance to many sessions of the conference.
At the Metro Toronto Convention Centre, attendance should be higher than last year in Geneva, which attracted 8,300 delegates from 158 countries. Of them, 34% were active in payments, 18% in trade services, 16% in cash management and 13% in securities, with smaller percentages of participants coming from the foreign exchange area (4%) and derivatives (2%). More than a quarter of them were involved in business development and strategy, 15% in sales and 9% each in information technology and financial operations. Commercial banks sent 32% of the delegates, and 24% were software vendors or consultants. What should change this year is the geographical mix, since Geneva attracted half of its participants from Europe, the Middle East and Africa, 24% from the UK and Nordics, and only 14% from North America and 13% from Asia Pacific.
According to data provided by Coalition, a research and analytics company, the total transaction banking revenue of the top ten banks worldwide modestly decreased last year to $36.5 billion—well below the 2014 peak of $39.1 billion. What seems pretty steady is that 54%-56% of the total revenue comes from cash-management related activities, 23%-24% from payment transactions and around 15% from traditional trade products (with a decrease of 3 percentage points over the last four years). The market is dominated by financial institution transactions, at 66% of services, with 33% rendered to corporates.
In Toronto the focus will once again be divided into four different streams: banking, compliance, securities and technology.
On the banking side, the conference will cover the future of payments and issues facing traditional correspondent banking, but will also introduce fresh topics like the new collaboration model between banks and corporates. Compliance is a hot topic, dealing with financial crimes and banks’ response. Securities will deal with the effects of regulatory changes on market infrastructures and the response of market players, but also will look at the viability of blockchain technologies and the role of artificial intelligence. Finally, the technology stream will focus on the impact of new technologies on financial services and the interaction of financial institutions with fintech companies.
Our supplement this year focuses on the key themes on the Sibos agenda, like open banking and its risks, co-location and cybersecurity, regtech and innovation, and spending smartly on tech. This is how we contribute to the ongoing discussion on these topics.
