Highlights from Sibos: Embracing cross-border payment collaboration with Mastercard
This week, much of the payment and banking industries descended upon Frankfurt for the latest edition of Sibos, the biggest banking conference of the year. Credit to Swift for putting on an excellent event: we understand this was the biggest Sibos yet, with over 12,000 people in attendance.
On Monday, I took to the stage alongside Pratik Khowala, Executive Vice President and Global Head of Transfer Solutions at Mastercard for our fireside chat: ‘Transforming Money Movement for Banks and Their Customers’.
During our discussion, we broke down how Mastercard is helping banks and businesses move money efficiently and securely across borders. SMEs are obviously a vital segment for banks, but some have been unable to keep pace – ultimately resulting in them losing some of their customers to fintechs. We spoke about how Mastercard is looking to turn the tide by working alongside global banks on the Swift network to make payment orchestration 24/7 and to increase trust in the process by offering settlement guarantees.
We also discussed some of the structural challenges that remain for banks when facilitating high-value B2B flows, and Pratik explained how the payments giant is helping banks overcome these hurdles, leveraging its global network to improve speed, transparency and efficiency.
During our chat, the importance of collaboration and interoperability became immediately clear, with Mastercard continuing to engage in partnerships across the globe to bolster money movement across borders. As if to prove this point, on the same day as our conversation, Mastercard unveiled its latest collaboration with corporate payments firm Corpay, enabling businesses and financial institutions to make near real-time payments into 22 new markets.
My main observations from Sibos 2025
Nearly every bank we spoke to talked about being in a better and happier place than they were several years ago, so the atmosphere and conference had a great energy to it (I’ve been going to Sibos for many years).
The fintechs are now nearly as smartly dressed as the bankers as. Guess what? The fintechs now want to do (a lot of) business with the banks, who are seen as the premier clients and credentials to win. The good news is the banks increasingly want to work with the fintechs, but be patient fintechs: these are not quick wins and the banks can afford to be picky. The sentiment is very much that a bank may lose some customers to fintechs in one customer segment but it can more than make up for it by banking that fintech – providing products and that layer of trust fintechs critically need.
Stablecoin was not top priority for any of the global banks I spoke with, but digital assets (including tokenisation) were of interest to nearly all of them. If they are going to do something big, and a number already have their own solutions, they are going to do it themselves. Most solutions focus on treasury movements for existing clients, with funds staying within the bank, but expect much more to come. The biggest banks are certainly not going to give up their core deposit income to stablecoin yield either, so watching how the industry plays out is going be fascinating.
Key announcements from the event
As usual, partnerships, launches and announcements came thick and fast throughout the four days at Sibos. Here are some of the biggest:
- Swift is teaming up with 30 financial institutions (FIs) to develop a shared digital ledger, in a move to enable real-time, 24/7 cross-border transactions.
- Visa unveiled plans to pilot pre-funded stablecoins to help businesses move money across borders, in a move it says will unlock liquidity and modernise treasury options.
- Citi is integrating its Token Services platform with its USD Clearing solution to enable 24/7, multibank cross-border instant payments for UK and US clients.
- Citi also announced a new partnership with cross-border payments firm Dandelion, leveraging Citi’s WorldLink Payment Services and Dandelion’s digital wallet network to facilitate faster and more cost-effective business-to-consumer payments.
- Finastra unveiled a new AI-powered solution, dubbed the Intelligent Routing Module, bringing data-driven payment routing to banks and FIs.
- Qatar National Bank has adopted J.P. Morgan’s blockchain payment platform, Kinexys, enabling the Middle East-based bank to cut down on settlement times for corporate USD transactions.
- Cross-border payment infrastructure provider Nium has launched Global Collections for banks, a new solution enabling banks to offer multicurrency collections accounts to customers.
How are banks competing on cross-border pricing?
