Sibos 2019: Aligning compliance with real-time payments
With faster payments redefining transactions, consumers now expect greater transparency and banks should focus on the “implications of data” to stay innovative, says Marion King, director of payments at NatWest, as reported by Alara Basul.
Banks need to balance consumer expectations for greater speed and also meet regulatory demands in order to balance risk controls. Data is now at the core of every proposition. Can the industry keep up with the innovation?
King believes it can. “Consumer expectations have surpassed safety, speed and simplicity. It’s now about the implications of data and managing these expectations. Being able to control your data and your finances is key – not just for consumers, but also for corporates managing liquidity and cash flow. The impact of open banking is changing entire business models.”
King says banks need to aggregate their vast data-sets and use artificial intelligence to spot unique trends to stay both secure and innovative. “Consumers are vulnerable, but there’s also a lot of sophisticated crime going on.”
Fellow panelist Patricia Sullivan, managing director and global co-head of financial crime compliance at Standard Chartered, agrees: “clients love faster payments, but they also love transparency on their payments. They understand payments may get held up, but they don’t like not knowing any updates. The Swift gpi tracker is extremely effective when it comes to combating this.”
In an audience vote during the panel, 65% of attendees voted that business and compliance sectors are working together to define how to best address the challenge of real time payments. 23% agreed that there were clear guidelines on this topic.
Facing the opposing forces of regulation vs. speed require implanting new technologies in order to succeed, according to Sullivan. “When picking new technologies, we need the right expertise to enable the change. We need to work with vendors who have the time to help integrate the data at a high quality in order to get the technology deployed.”
Jocelyn Norval, interim global head of screening and ABC at Barclays, says that success in open banking requires working with regulators. Barclays “brings regulators on their journey” to look at the concepts of error and alerts from both humans and machines. “It’s not always 100% either way. There’s a lot of statistics, but computers can have an element of error as well.”
She adds: “It’s important to co-innovate. We can do a lot more in the fraud space – sharing utility and data between banks will help fraud and financial crime and ultimately help payments get faster.”
Nilixa Devlukia, head of regulatory at Open Banking, says the mix of payments and regulation is the perfect storm. “The internet has enabled us to expect everything instantly. The same now goes for payments.”
