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February 28, 2022

ISO 20022 and the upcoming technologies like Bitcoin and other Cryptocurrencies

SWIFT - ISO 20022 and the upcoming technologies like Bitcoin and other Cryptocurrencies

We have interviewed Andrei Cristea Technical Consultant at Incentage AG about upcoming technologies

Andrei, can you please explain in few and easy words what this ISO 20022 is?

Andrei: ISO 20022 is the language of the future for the financial word. That is the shortest description I can come up with. To go into a bit more detail, the XML based ISO20022 standard allows Financial Institutions to use richer data sets in a standardized fashion. This means that systems can consume messages with faster automation and resolution.

Why are people speaking about message transformation when they relate to this Standard?

Message transformation is a cost-effective solution for navigating the coming transitional phase from the soon-to-be legacy SWIFT FIN (MT) standard to the future ISO 20022 standard. It helps Financial Institutions to start using and testing the new standards while keeping their existing systems mostly untouched. As the transition phase ends and the challenges posed by moving to the new standards are overcome, the systems themselves will benefit from the time spent using the ISO 20022 standards and will incorporate the latest changes. This will make them fully compliant with the new ways of the financial world.

What kind of hurdles have you found doing such transformations in your different client projects?

The main challenge raised by doing the transformations is that we are working in a constantly evolving environment. The new standard must not only cater for existing products and situations, but must also face the following paradox in the financial world: As the landscape is more interconnected, data and systems become increasingly diverse. As such, the standards themselves must evolve to keep ahead of the needs of the world and the systems that use these standards have to respond fast to the changes. This is where the flexibility of our products comes into play, as this is what allows us to react very quickly and implement these changes.

There is also the aspect of variety in the implementation of the ISO 20022 standard across different systems. A message of the same type from SEPA or TARGET2 (T2) will not necessarily look exactly the same as one from CBPR+. Both systems are going to evolve separately and might end up with some changes in the future, which you have to take into account and keep track of. Thankfully, our solutions allow us to tackle this challenge in an efficient and robust way.

Now we found out that ISO 20022 brings a lot of benefits especially for cross border payments. But it’s still the old fashioned way of working while improving old technology and processes.
Why banks don’t change to a Blockchain based payment process or introduce Bitcoin as a new currency to the system. Do you have any thoughts on that?

Well, I would say that “old-fashioned” is not a bad thing in itself. There is still great value in the traditional way of message processing and there is still a lot of room for improvements that will generate even more value for it. So I would reason that the “old way” is going to be with us for a long time to come, especially if it is constantly improved and if it can meet the demands of tomorrow.

Blockchain technology, while not new by any means, is still in its infancy, in my opinion. It has to prove that it can be at the very least as resilient, secure and cost effective as its counterparts, before there is any talk about replacing them. This does not mean that blockchain technologies do not have tremendous potential, they absolutely do, but first they must prove it and they must also stand the test of time.

As it stands, I think that the blockchain technology will continue to evolve. New projects are being created every day, some are meant to be industry disruptors and I am sure they will be one day. I am very curious to see what the next year will bring for this segment of technology

Have you been working in a Blockchain payment project where Bitcoin or Ethereum or other kind of Blockchain Technology was involved?

In short, no. I have not worked in any blockchain related projects so far. I am following a few blockchain platforms as I think they will provide the most interesting projects in the coming years. These are Cardano, Solana and Polka Dot. Each have different approaches to solving the issues that blockchains are facing, such as decentralization, network processing speed, scalability and cost and I am excited to see which one will bring the most innovative and disruptive projects in the coming years.

What is your personal opinion: How is Incentage positioned in ISO20022 as well as in Blockchain / Cryptocurrencies?

I think that the solutions and the expertise that we bring to the table are what give us at Incentage an edge in dealing with the coming transition to ISO 20022. Flexibility, fast response times and communication are key aspects in this endeavour and I believe these are core values for us.

Blockchain and cryptocurrencies are still emerging concepts and technologies that may bring great value in the future, depending on their use cases and adoption. When the time comes for the financial world to embrace new concepts, we will definitely be there to support our customers and to provide them with quality products.

Thank you very much Andrei for your insights.

Here you can follow Andrei's LinkedIn Profile

Andrei Cristea

Technical Consultant

Hello! I am Andrei Cristea and I am a technical consultant at Incentage. I have been working with Incentage products since 2012 when I was an application administrator at a customer of Incentage. My journey has taken me through various roles so far, from customer support, to Siebel administrator, Java developer and now technical consultant. I always liked to see how things work, how everything ties together and how systems are created to augment and expand our way of living.

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