An in-person version of SIBOS explored the ways forward for digital assets & the digitization of traditional assets.
The multiple impacts of digital assets and the digitization of traditional assets got plenty of attention at the first in-person version of the Sibos conference since 2019 that got underway earlier this week in Amsterdam.
Put on by the SWIFT cooperative, Sibos 2022 was expecting “nearly 10,000 participants,” according to officials.
The conference sessions, which reached beyond securities operations and IT management, tackled the impacts of climate change, geopolitics, the COVID-19 pandemic, rising interest rates, energy costs, inflation and a pending recession.
A key step for global financial markets and their acceptance of digital assets will be the emergence of Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs), and Yawar Shah managing director, Citi, USA, and chairman of the board of directors at SWIFT addresses the issue in a prepared statement.
“SWIFT is actively working across the industry with banks, central banks, market infrastructures, and regulators on numerous proofs of concept, and is closely examining emerging trends in areas such as central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), tokenized assets, and the linking of market infrastructures to explore how it can support interoperability and enable the seamless flow of value worldwide,” Shah says.
SWIFT Collaborators
In fact, SWIFT officials also referenced a collaboration with Citi, Clearstream, Northern Trust, and SETL “to assess how our existing infrastructure can be used as a single access point to multiple tokenization platforms.” (See previous FTF News coverage here: https://bit.ly/3I28CQ9)
The World Economic Forum has estimated that the tokenization phenomenon “could reach USD 24 trillion by 2027. The potential benefits include greater market liquidity and fractionalization, which could increase access to investment markets for retail investors and enable institutional investors to build stronger portfolios,” according to SWIFT.
Tom Zschach
“Our experiments successfully carried out 70 scenarios, simulating market issuance and secondary market transfers of tokenized bonds, equities, and cash. The results show that SWIFT can be used as a single point of entry to various tokenized networks, and our infrastructure can be used for creating, transferring, and redeeming tokens and updating balances between multiple client wallets,” according to SWIFT officials.
“Tokenization has great potential when it comes to strengthening liquidity in markets and increasing access to investment opportunities,” says Tom Zschach, chief innovation officer at SWIFT, in prepared remarks.
“Digital currencies and tokens have huge potential to shape the way we will all pay and invest in the future. But that potential can only be realized if the different approaches that are being explored have the ability to connect and work together … And SWIFT’s existing infrastructure can ensure these benefits can be realized at the earliest opportunity, by as many people as possible,” Zschach says.
SmartStream & ISO 20022
The global gathering also saw more providers deepening their embrace of the ISO 20022 standard, whose reach covers a wide range of securities operations and banking, consumer, and related payments processing for many financial communities.
With SIBOS and ISO 20022 in mind, SmartStream Technologies launched an artificial intelligence-based solution, TLM Aurora Advanced Account Control, which is intended to help customers “manage large, verified data sets, not only for reconciliation purposes but for downstream systems,” according to the vendor.
The new solution replaces SmartStream’s Cash solution, which is in use in more than 81 countries globally, vendor officials say.
Targeting data that conforms to ISO 20022 standards, the TLM Aurora Advanced Account Control solution “accepts larger data sets natively” and has “a streaming platform allowing for the data to be verified for other areas of the organization,” according to the vendor. The combination is intended to give clients capabilities for “real-time and volume handling,” and to achieve savings in overall cost-of-ownership.
Jethro MacDonald
“In addition, there is a big opportunity here for unlocking data, not previously available — and we are the only vendor to offer this service,” says Roland Brandli, strategic product manager at SmartStream, in a prepared statement.
In a related effort, Jethro MacDonald, a product manager for artificial intelligence and machine learning at SmartStream, chats with FTF News about exploring ways to apply artificial intelligence (A.I.) to exceptions management and several SIBOS-related matters here: https://bit.ly/3CxJnny
Broadridge Jolts Proxy Voting in Austria
The cutting edges of technology are changing established operations such as proxy voting.
In time for SIBOS, Broadridge Financial Solutions reports that it has a “successful live running of its ‘market golden copy’ event sourcing and proxy vote execution service for banks, brokers and wealth managers in Austria.”
“We remain firmly focused on our commitment to innovate and transform the proxy voting eco-system, both globally and at a local market level, while reducing costs and risk to market intermediaries through our mutualized shared service model,” says Demi Derem, general manager of International Investor Communication Solutions at Broadridge, in a prepared statement.
“The Austrian service is the latest operationally live addition to Broadridge’s fast-growing Direct Market Solutions (DMS) product suite that directly connects investors and issuers and improves voting deadlines for investors. DMS supports both institutional and retail investor voting in Austrian equities,” according to Broadridge officials.
The automated service will extend “the voting window and research period for investors by an average of four days. Meeting and event notifications are electronically sourced from the market after which they are reconciled and forwarded to investors. Voting instructions received are provided digitally for physical submission at the meeting in accordance with national requirements. A confirmation of receipt of votes will be provided and displayed to investors confirming the vote was duly cast,” according to Broadridge.
