Global head of corporate and supply chain markets at Society for Worldwide Financial Telecommunication, André Casterman, discusses the new position that Swift occupies in the transaction banking space.

For transaction bankers, the Society for Worldwide Financial Telecommunication (Swift) is like the glue that binds the industry together, and its annual conference – Sibos – is the event of the year. Swift’s business has grown out of correspondent banking and its standardised messaging, although it is not a payments network but rather a messaging standard. André Casterman, global head of corporate and supply chain markets at Swift explains that the company is not in the business of moving money, but information. If the layers of global trade are the movement of goods, money and information, Swift sits firmly in the information supply chain and enables secure messaging that instructs banks to move funds.

Swift has been expanding beyond its core bank-to-bank business and has been extending its solutions to corporates. In his current role, Mr Casterman oversees Swift’s strategy and business development in the corporate and trade markets. Swift has applied its solutions to corporates that are interested in reaching a higher number of banks, a service that has become more relevant as corporates become increasingly global and multi-banked.

Mr Casterman has been in his current role since the end of 2012, when the corporate market was added to his previous role of product and business development in supply chain finance. Prior to that he was head of Swift France. He has been at Swift for more than 20 years and has held a number of other positions, including IT and business development roles.

During his career at Swift he has witnessed the organisation expand beyond bank-to-bank messaging standards. As Swift continues to evolve, there are some industry observers sceptical about the company's future. Some argue that Swift has been successful in setting the messaging standards, but as far as the other solutions are concerned, there are other alternatives. And some believe that decentralised protocols such as Bitcoin and Ripple spell the end for traditional bank-to-bank networks and organisations such as Swift. However, there remain many believers in Swift, of which Mr Casterman is one. In this podcast he says it would not be easy to replicate what Swift has already achieved although he says it is important to not be complacent.

 

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