Sibos Day Three: BNY Mellon Featured At Awards Ceremony

Day 3 Sibos 2017 momentum continued Wednesday, with BNY Mellon being presented with 11 awards during the Sixth Annual Global Finance Processing Awards Ceremony at the University Club of Toronto, sponsored by Global Finance magazine. Of particular note, one of the biggest changes from last year's awards was that BNY Mellon was recognized as Best Global Securities Lender, taking the top spot from State Street. Mark Ridley, Head of Relationship Management, North America Financial Institutions, Treasury Services, and Rosa Scappatura, a managing director in Corporate Trust's Strategic Clients Group, accepted the awards on behalf of BNY Mellon, including Best Global Corporate Trust Services Provider and Best Bank for Financial Institutions (Editor's Note: Full list of awards shown below).

Being on hand to receive the 11 awards at the Global Finance ceremony was only part of BNY Mellon's busy day in Toronto. Frank Behlmer, Chief Operations Officer, Global Operations Treasury Services, was featured in a well-attended morning session exploring the topic of 'Fraud and cyber high alert: The new normal? '

Michael Bellacosa, Head of Global Payments Product Management, Treasury Services, was a featured panelist in a discussion exploring: 'Complementary or competitive? The role of payments market infrastructures and correspondent banks in instant international payments.' According to Bellacosa, 'It was a lively discussion about the best path forward to advance cross border payments. We discussed challenges to change the current environment highlighting regulatory concerns, legacy processes, and the role each of us has to help drive change. Adding, 'The collective view was the path forward likely includes several options: advancement of SWIFT gpi, interoperability of Real Time Domestic payment systems, incremental traditional payment channel improvements, and newer technologies like distributed ledger.'

The continuing evolution of technology and its role in the financial services industry has been a hot topic of discussion this week at Sibos. Saket Sharma, Chief Information Officer, Treasury Services Technology, was amongst key technologists painting a view into the future state, discussing: 'API in Financial Services: The key to the Future,' and 'Creating a space for innovation.' According to Sharma, 'The first panel featured a stimulating conversation around API- including challenges and lessons learned through our various technology journeys, while the second panel illustrated how we can learn and apply innovations happening in other industries to financial services.'

Dino Sani, Head of Treasury Services Latin America, was featured in panel sessions discussing 'The evolving banking sector in Latin America: How can we manage change?' and 'Building bridges: how SWIFT's KYC registry helps secure your place in the global financial system.' 'Innovation is definitely on everyone's minds and that was the focus of my panels,' said Sani. 'We discussed how clients and correspondent banks are dealing with tracks of innovation and how they are working with fintechs.' Adding, 'We need to embrace technology and to collaborate with fintechs to help deliver impactful solutions for our clients.'

Later in the afternoon, Joon Kim, Global Head of Trade Finance and Portfolio Management, participated in a multi-lateral agreement ceremony with Asian development bank (ADB). 'Trade finance is an increasingly important accelerant for global economic growth,' Kim said. 'Our signing the TFP agreement, while strengthening our relationship with ADB, provides us an additional trade finance channel and additional capacity to assist our correspondent banks and the ultimate trade clients they serve.'

Rounding out BNY Mellon's Day 3 at Sibos, Chris Mager, Head of Global Innovation, Treasury Services Product Management Group, was one of two panelists in the Financial Times' 7th Annual Financial Leaders Dinner Forum. The topic of discussion was 'The Future of Fintech-the Promises and the Risks.'

'It was an engaging panel discussion, moderated by futurist and author Ade McCormack, where we discussed the opportunities that banks see in collaborating with fintechs to integrate new technologies and concepts to transform banking,' said Mager. 'Adding to the engagement was the fact that the audience was able to contribute to the event questions via response devices, which provided really interesting perspectives and input.' Mager concluded, 'The consensus was that engaging with fintechs is an attractive proposition, and that data analytics and AI are viewed as the best opportunities in the next few years.'

Complete List of BNY Mellon Global Finance Awards

Foreign Exchange:

Treasury and Cash Management:

Securities Services