This posting appears in IBS Intelligence and announces a new deal between Citi and Volante Technologies, the New Jersey-based payments fintech. The two firms are expanding their existing relationship to include the use of Volante’s cloud-based ISO platform for Citi’s TTS business, one of the top global transaction banking organizations.
As many readers will know, there is a pending migration of payments systems to the ISO 20022 messaging standard, which includes wire transfers, and banks are figuring out how to address that requirement.
‘Volante Technologies, a global provider of payments and financial messaging solutions in the cloud, and Citi Treasury and Trade Solutions (Citi) has announced deepening their longstanding relationship to accelerate the bank’s adoption of the ISO 20022 financial messaging standard across its global payments operations…The shift to ISO 20022 is gathering steam, and major payment market infrastructures, instant payment rails, and SWIFT cross-border payments are making the move. Under the partnership, Citi will be the first Volante customer to offer a unified approach to ISO 20022 migration across the globe. Citi will be building its core ISO 20022 capability using Volante’s VolPay For ISO 20022 Migration solution.’
All new real-time payments rails are built on the de-facto global messaging standard, and SWIFT, as well as the Fed and TCH in the U.S. have announced their transition to ISO 20022 as well, although the timeframes have been delayed due to the uncertainties around COVID-19. We expect that will get back on track for the 2023-24 timeframe.
As such banks across the globe will need to determine their approach to this transition, which is basically a ‘no-choice’ scenario, most directly with regard to cross-border funds movement. Members of CEP will know this based on the 2021 Outlook, which points out the need for banks to take advantage of platform banking through cloud migration, something Volante provides. Citi is typically ahead of the curve when it comes to corporate transaction banking technology.
‘“Significant changes are on the horizon for banks and financial institutions, with ISO 20022 migration mandates raising a multitude of operational, infrastructural, and technical challenges. Helping banks rise to the challenge and enabling them to meet critical deadlines without slowing down modernization efforts, will be key to their success. Moreover, by deploying VolPay for ISO 20022 Migration, bank treasury teams will be able to offer rich, value-added data services to their corporate clients, simplifying reconciliation effort, improving straight-through processing, and reducing fraud,” said Uday Thakur, CTO, Volante Technologies.’
Overview by Steve Murphy, Director, Commercial and Enterprise Payments Advisory Service at Mercator Advisory Group
