Global Financial Messaging Network Fast stated earlier this year that it was working with 25 financial institutions (FIs) and application providers on a “proof of value” initiative focused on improving front-end interactions, where lower value transactions (defined as payments below the $100,000 threshold ) are worth as much as $12 million.
Andy Elliottvice president of strategy at EvonSysand Costa Hagidimitriou, senior director of National Bank of Canadatold PYMNTS that the push to integrate Swift services into their front-end channels – through websites and apps – can help traditional financial institutions compete directly with digital upstarts, particularly in cross-border remittances .
Banks may dominate cross-border commercial payments, the two men said, but there are still opportunities for innovation.
A fragmented landscape
“But in the P2P space it is very fragmented, and there are lots of opportunities for someone to emerge and dominate that space – or to help banks improve the service they offer,” said Elliott.
EvonSys, he added, is choosing the latter route to help modernize retail payments for banks, as digital-only players such as Wise Or Remitly seek to disrupt the market. Banks aren’t going away, Elliott said, adding that there’s still a lot of work to do to improve these front-end experiences.
“When individuals log into their online banking accounts or mobile apps, the processes we follow to make a cross-border payment are not very transparent,” Elliott said. “It’s taking too long. It is relatively expensive and unnecessarily complex.
Swift, he said, has a number of solutions already in use in the back office that can now be brought to the front end.
Hagidimitriou’s National Bank of Canada, the country’s sixth-largest bank, has partnered with EvonSys as part of the Swift initiative.
“We are in the process of a major transformation, both digitally and in terms of our payments infrastructure,” Hagidimitriou said. “It was an opportunity to test some of the key Swift features we hear so much about, like Swift Reference and pre-validation.”
A set of Swift features
Elliott added that the five-pack Fast The company’s integrated payments platform offerings – including the aforementioned cross-border features, GPI Tracker and Swift Go and Swift Observer – make it easier to improve the customer experience in the front office channel.
Hagidimitriou noted that there is already value in making it easier for customers to complete beneficiary and cross-border payment information digitally, and in getting delivery of payment estimates in hand.
“The proof of value,” Elliott said, “has convinced us that there is an opportunity for banks to reclaim lost market share (given away) to FinTech.”
The Swift Observer option allows EvonSys to inform banks’ end customers, at the moment they want to initiate a transfer, how long it will take and how much it will cost, he added.
“We can anticipate these things based on historical payments,” Elliott said.
EvonSys has bundled Swift offerings with a country-specific end-to-end sales process. In more heavily regulated countries, the EvonSys package has the ability to request more information to support these cross-border transfers.
The movement to reuse what banks have already invested in allows financial institutions to save time and money while moving these lower-value payments across borders for free, Elliott said.
“Our goal is to continue to educate banks to help them imagine what their front-end experience could be for their retail banking customers by leveraging some of these services and, where possible, leveraging the payments platform EvonSys,” he said. “Leveraging existing investments and promoting them within the front office will help improve the customer experience. »
