Can you give us an overview of your role?
I am an ISO 20022 evangelist.  One of the roles I have within that remit is that I set out the Standards API strategy within SWIFT. I also ensure the convergence and coexistence of ISO 20022 with other standardisation initiatives such as BIAN, W3C, PSD2, etc

What prompted you to participate in BIAN?
ISO 20022 looks at standardising finance from the outside in. What I mean is that ISO 20022 looks at the externally observable information flows. BIAN does the opposite: it looks at finance inside out. So it looks at the processes inside of a financial institution. Both are based on the same business model and thus they are complementing each other. It would therefore be very useful to the community if that business model is indeed the same, to ensure interoperability. This is where I come in. Now even more with APIs, where traditional internally managed services are now exposed in the cloud, APIs play an even more important role in fostering interoperability.

What do you see as the biggest challenge facing the banking industry in the next 5 years?
Technology isn’t slowing down innovation anymore. Now it is enabling it. APIs, DLT, AI are the new kids on the block. Banks and more generally finance have moved into a far more competitive and agile world. APIs for example are enablers and as such they allow players to quickly and easily enter into the finance domain. What used to be the traditional core banking space, is now under scrutiny by other players. This combined with pressure from the regulators to open these traditional banking services results in a rapidly changing banking environment, creating uncertainty to many as to what their market share and role will be in five years.

How would you sum up the future of banking in one word?
agile