Sibos preview Tuesday: Back to the future

If you don’t know about the metaverse, you will do after day two of Sibos as the virtual world features throughout a day packed with ISO 20022 discussions, Inside Leadership sessions and an exploration of The Great Return as the world gets back to the office.

It turns out that the futuristic world of flying cars and self-lacing sneakers envisioned in the 80s was slightly wide of the mark; instead a simulated digital environment known as the metaverse has emerged, and very much become part of our future.

In the space of 12 months many of us have gone from Googling ‘what is the metaverse?’ to considering how it might impact our organisations. On day two of this year’s Sibos, a handful of panels will delve into this virtual world defining what it is, why it’s important and what the future holds for industries that would never have imagined asking themselves “Should I buy a piece of land in the metaverse?” a year ago.

In ‘Metaverse: Journey or destination?’ speakers will highlight that while there’s a range of opinions on what the metaverse actually is and what it means, there’s little doubt that digital continues to disrupt, disintermediate and run a wrecking ball through established and traditional models.

Later, in a session titled ‘Spotlight on Digital Value: Conquering the metaverse’ experts will continue the conversation, highlighting how many traditional banks have started purchasing digital land to build stadiums, lounges and branches. The discussion will go on to ask when the first stock exchange and asset manager will open in the metaverse and whether you’ll be one of the first investors?

Tokenisation, Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) and distributed ledger technology (DLT) feature once again in a day partly devoted to the future of finance and partly taking stock of the current opportunities around initiatives such as ISO 20022, which features heavily on day two.

To begin the day, the standard becomes the foundation of a conversation on securities where a panel will dive into the opportunities ISO 20022 presents to cut through today’s complexities, and what’s needed to build a bridge to this frictionless future. Later we’re invited to rethink data architecture through the ISO 20022 lens alongside J.P. Morgan, Northern Trust, Deutsche Bank and Swift, while in a session simply named ‘Are you ready for ISO 20022?’ speakers explore the key milestones and mandatory requirements you need to know to be ready for the go-live of ISO 20022 for cross-border payments in November.

In addition to replacing a number of bank-specific formats, ISO 20022 supports additional data elements that are carried along the end-to-end payment chain, including the account statements that corporates receive from their bank. Enriched payment data also enables more advanced analytics for better liquidity forecasting or improved risk insights. In ‘The power of data: Delivering a step change in financial crime compliance’ session participants will explore the value of ISO 20022 for compliance, how data can be leveraged to detect financial crime, and how to overcome some of the barriers related to data.

The topic of settlement fails comes up on day two with speakers exploring the key to eliminating them. While 94% of securities trades settle on time, the 6% that don’t are costing the industry billions of dollars annually in operational costs. The introduction of CSDR in Europe is only set to accelerate these costs and, coincidentally, will also be a topic of conversation during an update from the Securities Market Practice Group (SMPG) on the morning of the second day of the event.

Some of the essential payments viewings of the day include ‘Reduce friction with Payment Pre-validation’, ‘High stakes in low-value payments: Time to go all-in’ and ‘Reinventing the cross-border payments experience’.

The day’s Inside Leadership roster includes some heavyweight financial services experts from CIPS, HSBC and Société Générale, while Innotribe revisits quantum four years later to see what’s changed, and how this emerging technology has huge ramifications for all facets of every industry and supply chain.

The final panel to highlight stems from a popular phrase over the past 12 months in ‘The great resignation’. Four high-ranking banking executives will flip the narrative and discuss ‘The Great Return’ which they believe is underway, with staff returning to workplaces that have changed while they’ve been at home.

The panelists will discuss how companies need to proactively consider how to welcome people back into their organisational culture, and what changes are needed to achieve inclusiveness and belonging.

In this session, attendees can learn how to effectively manage this moment to retain talent and create an environment in which all your staff will drive forward your business objectives with energy.