CBPC Roadshow: Swift – Shaping the Future of Finance – Shriyanka Hore [Episode #2]

02:12
Jens Seidl
Welcome to another episode of the P.I.T. Exchange, payments, innovation and technology. My name is Jens Seidl and I’m your host for today’s episode. I’m very happy to have Shriyanka Hore with us from Swift in London today, Shriyanka. Welcome.

02:32
HORE Shriyanka
Absolute pleasure to be on the show, Jens, and good speaking to you again.

02:36
Jens Seidl
Likewise, thank you. I’ve known Shriyanka for quite a few years now. We’ve been meeting at different conferences in Frankfurt from time to time as well, or in London. So it’s great to have a familiar face with us today and I’m looking forward to this conversation. As usual in my episodes, I like to start with three semi personal questions just to get to know the person. Shriyanka before we start talking about payments and what’s happening at Swift. So the first very easy one. Do you prefer tea or coffee?

03:09
HORE Shriyanka
Tea. I’m a tea person, Jens.

03:12
Jens Seidl
Okay. What kind of tea, if I may ask?

03:15
HORE Shriyanka
Oh, that changes based on the time of the day. Breakfast tea in the morning, and I end my day with a mint tea.

03:21
Jens Seidl
All right. I have to admit, I’m more of a tea person now as well. After I lived for five years in the UK, that changed my whole outlook on. On tea completely.

03:32
HORE Shriyanka
No wonder we are friends.

03:34
Jens Seidl
Yes. Okay, good. Then. Second question. What is your favorite cuisine?

03:43
HORE Shriyanka
Well, I am quite a foodie, but I. I love to cook Indian food and I. I quite enjoy the cuisine, the flavors it has to offer.

03:52
Jens Seidl
Okay, all right, nice. And last question. And that is one where you. We talked about this previously, so this is more for our listeners rather than me learning something new about you. You play an instrument. Do you want to talk a little bit to us about that? What instrument do you play?

04:09
HORE Shriyanka
Oh, dear. Yes, I do play the sitar, which is a classical Indian instrument, but I like to try contemporary tunes on it.

04:19
Jens Seidl
Oh, wow. 1. I haven’t heard you play it yet. And hopefully one day I will get an opportunity. That sounds fascinating, especially the contemporary music on the sitar. That sounds cool.

04:31
HORE Shriyanka
Indeed.

04:33
Jens Seidl
All right, well, thank you for that. And now let’s start to talk about a little bit more about you and your professional context. So you work with Swift. Do you want to tell us a little bit about what your role is at Swift and what you do there?

04:47
HORE Shriyanka
I lead up global industry relations at Swift and I also work alongside the industry. So, you know, you can think of my team as the critical link between ongoing developments in the industry. We analyze the strategic forces across policy, markets, technology that shape not only, you know, operations at Swift, but the trajectory of the entire community, Swift community and the industry at large. And I work increasingly with senior stakeholders, regulators, market infrastructure, banks, with a laser sharp focus on development of policy and how technology will impact the future of finance.

05:34
Jens Seidl
Okay. And maybe taking a step back and. And I’m assuming that most people that will listen to this podcast will know who Swift is, but I’ve been observing quite a change in the way Swift is positioning itself now in over the last few years as well, where Swift, for I think many years has been that messaging service, to put it really easy in. In very easy terms, but it’s so much more. Do you want to talk a little bit about that maybe?

06:06
HORE Shriyanka
Yes, thank you for asking that. I mean, when you think Swift you think different things. You think correspondent banking network, sometimes you think Swift messages. But at the heart of what Swift is, it is a community. We are a global cooperative that sits at the heart of the global financial ecosystem. We have over 11,500 financial institutions on our network and we operate in over 220 plus countries and over 145 plus currencies move across our network every single day amounting to the world’s GDP. You know that’s the kind of scale Swift has. When I say world’s GDP, it’s every three days. We see that in terms of the evolution of Swift over the years. We started off with being a point to point messaging network, but over the years it’s become synonymous to trust resilience.

07:09
HORE Shriyanka
It is the ecosystem that underpins trust in global finance in a way. And we play a very significant role as the registration authority of the ISO 20022. And we are also responsible for uplifting the quality of messaging standards and data standards for the industry. And you see it with the recent adoption of ISO 20022 across the network. Today we have over 98% of messages and structured data that allows for better screening automation and paves the way for a data led way of intelligent systems and how it works. So to sum it up Jens, indeed, there’s been a lot of evolution from becoming the network of trust for point to point messaging, to taking on a more advanced role of actually being the orchestrator for transactions and end to end life cycle management in some ways from traceability, tracking, predictability even before the transaction originates.

08:19
HORE Shriyanka
So we have gone through a whole journey over the last 50 years in terms of how transactions originate, are tracked, screened and move across network.

08:30
Jens Seidl
Okay, well there’s a lot more change coming obviously and we’ll talk about that in a few minutes. But maybe before that. Again, I don’t want to presume for our listeners that they fully understand how Swift operates. Can you talk a little bit about the ownership structure of Swift as well? Who’s actually behind Swift? How does that work?

08:52
HORE Shriyanka
Well, we are a network of banks, but it is not limited to banks. We have banks and non banks on the network. We operate over 200 plus market infrastructures as a technical operator in domestic markets. And the governance, you know, we’ve gone through a whole evolution of the governance at this point and you will hear more about it in the year to come in terms of how we are becoming more inclusive even from a governance standpoint. But we’ve always been overseen by the G10 Central Banks and the shareholders are the banks. So it’s a true public private partnership that has sustained the tests of time and you know, the ups and downs from macroeconomics to geopolitical shifts and all of that comes with it. And now we’re using technology to pivot us into the future of building that future of finance.

09:53
HORE Shriyanka
And I’m very eager to speak to you about that, Jens.

09:57
Jens Seidl
Okay, great. Well let’s move on to that then. Talking about the future of finance and obviously there’s, I think there’s added complexity ahead of us, right? There’s new technologies coming up, whether it is tokenized deposits, stablecoins, faster payment systems, etc. There’s so many innovations in not just the user experience, but the underlying technology that enables user experience. So how is that changing Swift? How does that change the role of Swift in that ecosystem?

10:31
HORE Shriyanka
I don’t think the role of Swift changes, I think the service levels of Swift, we continuously try and raise that bar. And it’s not only at Swift, it is because payments is a team sport and that is where you can establish better, you know, more enhanced rules offering customer service. So it’s a very organic process in how we do that. So let’s first talk about cross border payments because although you know, Swift is the messaging network for cross border trade, FX securities, let’s zoom in a little bit into payments today. So but in the whole life cycle of a cross border payment we see, you know, very fast movement of transactions across the cross border mile.

11:21
HORE Shriyanka
But when it reaches the domestic mile, that is where a number of frictions exist and that is what is really responsible for the slow cross border payments angle to which many people kind of associate frictions to. And some of these frictions are, I wouldn’t call them frictions because they’re inherent features of the monetary architecture of that sovereign jurisdiction. It could be around capital and FX controls, currency repatriation draws, you know, regulatory reporting around foreign proceeds and so on. So the need to stop, check, document and then credit is really what is driven sometimes by overlapping regulations and controls that exist but you know, over time infrastructure.

12:16
HORE Shriyanka
In the last mile we’ve seen a great evolution there because RTGS’s we know operate for limited hours and then we have a number of fast payment systems which have come up over the years but are also opening up to cross border payments. Now in that journey we are enforcing a newer service level agreement across the network which we call Scheme. And what it does is it taps into the faster last mile that exists in jurisdictions now and it enforces, or rather it’s an optional scheme that has been built very inclusively with over 40 banks. But it really aims to drive better upfront predictability of payments by disclosure of fees and effects early on, even before the transaction starts, full end to end visibility of the journey of the payment and most importantly, no deducts and the credit is on the same day.

13:19
HORE Shriyanka
So everything around delayed payments, it’s really about changing and shifting the game. And all of this is specifically tailored to retail and SME payments. So we are continuously enhancing better service levels and predictability on the first mile. Right. Even before the payment starts, the cross border mile in terms of resilience, in terms of better traceability. And they’re now extending it to solve the frictions of the last mile. But that is a different angle altogether, but because some of these frictions are beyond the control infrastructure or any one single institution.

13:58
Jens Seidl
Yeah, and I’m sure it’s no coincidence that a lot of the topics you mentioned there are obviously aligning with the G20 initiative as well to improve cross border payments strategically. Right. You mentioned transparency there, for instance, seeing what fees or exchange rates will be early on in the transaction, traceability, etc. Etc. So speed obviously. So I’m guessing this is very much in or keeping the G20 roadmap in mind, is that fair to say?

14:30
HORE Shriyanka
Absolutely. So our strategy has always been aligned towards instant frictionless cross border payments and that also aligns very closely to the G20 roadmap. Now while we are uplifting the service levels on existing traditional rails, we are going in for a two track parallel innovation strategy. And the second prong is around bringing a new layer into our infrastructure which is blockchain based. So we’re introducing a shared ledger. Again, you know, it’s almost optional, but we see some of the largest banks come onto the ledger initiative and here we are building a minimum viable product and we’re going to evaluate how distributed ledger technology and tokenized deposits can unlock better liquidity and you know, visibility of cash positions for commercial banks through the through 247 operations. So it’s really about unlocking the power of 247 with DLT.

15:39
HORE Shriyanka
And this is targeted primarily towards wholesale cross border payments. Whereas everything to do with scheme is about bringing all of the best practices we’ve developed for wholesale to serve retail and consumer where cost remains a challenge and the service levels can not only improve cross border payments for the end users, but also lower cost collectively in the larger Scheme of things.

16:06
Jens Seidl
Yeah, yeah. And that’s, I think that’s also interesting because that seems to be the consensus, at least across most of the industry that the DLT technology and tokenization is really important and something that should be driven forward quite quickly in the wholesale space while on the retail side the jury is still out, so to say. So that again your strategy seems to align with that current view of focused tokenization on the wholesale space. But let’s use conventional measures if you like when looking at improving the retail side of payments.

16:48
HORE Shriyanka
Absolutely. What we are preparing for is a multi model, multi rail, multi chain and a multi asset world. Right. So newer forms of money will continue to emerge and you know, Swift role will remain unchanged at the end of the day. So how do you prepare for that? And interoperability remains a core value and ethos of our strategy as well. So whether you look at it in terms of bringing standardized data, standardized rules, policies, service level frameworks, it is really about ensuring that the end user should be agnostic to the Rails behind it. Right. It should always have that comfort, that predictability and trust of making payments through a formal banking system. So that is where we really kind of align our efforts today.

17:42
Jens Seidl
Got it. So where do you see then the biggest priorities when it comes to modernizing cross border payments? What are the key areas that we should focus on?

17:58
HORE Shriyanka
Because I think you’re really talking about evolution of today’s Rails and a complete area of exploration of how systems of the future, intelligent systems, automate, autonomous systems, will kind of come in. I think let’s first break it down into leveraging infrastructure that is being built in sovereign jurisdictions to cater to fast payments today. You know, typically fast payments systems in country were built to serve the local economy domestic only. And as these fast payment systems today open up for cross border bring on schemes like One Leg out there is immense potential to impact the speed of payments. So 24, seven capabilities of these fast payment systems not only drive faster credit but also it can open up better capillarity into accounts, wallets in and unlock working capital. And there’s this whole angle to economic growth that it can power.

19:10
HORE Shriyanka
So that for me is a primary focus and need for alignment globally. And it’s not about bilateral links or multilateral links. It is about having that freedom of choice and you could have all of those but also connect to cross border infrastructure like Swift under the payment scheme and unlock over 45,000 payment routes that exist on it today. The second piece, and this is a journey, many think that in November 2025, when the Swift network moved to ISO20022 for payments initiation messages, it was the end of a journey. But really that is the start of a journey of richer structured data. And I think it’s. While, you know, the cross border infrastructure has adopted ISO 20022, it still remains to be harmonized across different RTGS’s. Different payment systems within the same country still have different data, you know, standards that they follow.

20:19
HORE Shriyanka
So it is about alignment, domestic at the domestic level and then that cross border harmonization. And lastly, I think if were to sum up all of this in terms of uplifting data quality and opening up fast payments, we need to basically accept the fact that real time, faster payments mean risks in real time. And with all of the nature of volatility that exists today across markets, geopolitics, risk compliance, resilience becomes a top focus for markets and it’s across cyber security. It is about operational resilience and it is about the ability to drive that real time, you know, risk and compliance into every single transaction that flows into that country. So that is, that for me is still top focus.

21:16
Jens Seidl
Yeah. Okay, now that again, that makes sense. Now I think especially the ISO point also resonates with me because it’s one thing to define the technology standard, but then it’s also the next step for people to use it consistently. And I think that’s where, and that’s not a Swift problem. Right. This is for the industry really to make sure that the data is being used in the right way, that the right data is being provided. Provided. And that goes beyond the banking landscape as well. Corporates, people that use those services, they need to make sure they provide the right data to enable fast payments.

21:57
HORE Shriyanka
Absolutely. And you’re spot on there, Jens, because you know, ISO 20022 is an open data standard, right? So it is across business domains and as you mentioned, corporates need to make changes, banks need to make changes. It is about speaking that collective language into that, that enables better automation, risk resilience. And you know, we can build intelligent systems on top of this common data, that layer that we’re designing today.

22:28
Jens Seidl
Yeah, great. All right, well let’s talk about something else that you’ve been working on. You released a new index recently and I think that, and I’ll let you talk about what that index is and what the purpose of that is, but could you tell us a little bit more about that and what you’ve actually seen as a result of that piece of work? That you’ve done.

22:55
HORE Shriyanka
So I think, yes, you know, you’ve kind of sneakily looked at this new piece of exciting research with which Swift has worked on with the industry. And you know, it’s very critical because it addresses the last mile problem and the frictions that exist. When we looked at why payments are slow and that’s, this is a journey, right. Like we’ve been coming up with the Spotlight on Speed series where we talk about what are the causes of friction and so on, but it was very difficult to benchmark it at some level. So the optimization index really is a benchmark for measurable frictions. So what it does is a, it can not only identify which frictions are related to slower processing, it can also enable direct comparison. So for individual countries, which is a better lever for optimization right across the levers which we’ve identified.

24:06
HORE Shriyanka
And then it provides the empirical foundation for prioritized action at a domestic level and at a cross border level. So when we look at the top areas of optimization, these have come up as regulatory requirements, capital and FX environments and then you know, of course we’re speaking a lot about standards today then how risk and control is deployed. So when we talk about risk and controls, this is essentially about the financial crime and security behind the transaction inflows and finally domestic infrastructure. So I mean it’s going to be a very interesting piece of research and we’re very excited to bring that to the conference in Istanbul and do a deep dive in terms of workshop, probably Jens, because it’s a massive piece of research and if I were to kind of just talk through it today, I don’t think I would be doing justice.

25:07
HORE Shriyanka
And yes, and it, you know, it’s, the index basically builds on a number of measurable data points that exist today and we’ve curated that across the IMF, the World Bank, the BIS, the fatf. And we’ve built an economic statistical model that kind of correlates and scores these frictions for each country against the credit time that we see on Swift. Most importantly, I think we also have to understand that when you look at the G20 targets, it is talking about speed as a singular benchmark. So 75% of payments have to be credited within one hour. But when you look at economies and where they are in terms of their economic structure, in terms of the depth of their FX markets and how the currencies are traded, local regulations that deploy, it’s a very uneven field.

26:16
HORE Shriyanka
And what we see here is that the topmost friction is probably around capital and FX controls that exist within emerging markets, advanced, emerging, to be very specific. And some of these delays cannot be, you know, bypassed. It’s beyond a particular business model or the infrastructure that’s used to bring payments in or. Yeah, or the currency of choice and so on. So it really requires a rethink at this point in terms of policy, in terms of how we are actually implementing or, you know, how do I put it, how do we have reporting, how do we have some of the business rules and processes implemented within institutions that actually hand the payment? So that’s a little bit.

27:10
HORE Shriyanka
Jens, I think I’ve given you a very long answer, but it is really a huge piece of research and I think it deserves a room full of intellectuals, practitioners, regulators, policymakers who really passionately believe in impacting change, for the industry to come together at a venue like the one that you’re putting together. So tell me a little bit about this conference, Jens. When is it? Why should we be excited about it?

27:45
Jens Seidl
Great. Well, thanks for setting that up so nicely. More than happy to. And maybe again for our listeners to understand some of the background here. Swift launched the Policy Lab at the Sibos conference in Frankfurt, which was very happy to attend at the time. Shriyanka was there as well. I think you’re one of the driving forces behind the Policy Lab and we talked about maybe we could use our Central Bank Payments Conference, which is an annual conference, to continue some of these conversations. So we’re very happy that we’re working with Swift at the next Central Bank Payments Conference in Istanbul that’s taking place 31st August to 2nd of September, where we are going to run like a mini version of the, well, a reduced version of the Policy Lab that started in Frankfurt and looking at especially what we just talked about.

28:38
Jens Seidl
So what are these frictions in payments? How can they be removed or at least reduced? And also how does that hang together with the wider ecosystem? So we’re not entirely looking only at cross border payments, but we’re also going to include the securities side of things as well, because that’s also a topic where I guess somewhat anachronistically, you’re still looking in many places at a day plus two kind of settlement cycle on security. So what can be done about that? And as you said, it needs some bright minds to be in the room. And we’re gathering people from the public sector, so from central banks, regulators from securities side as well. Well, but also from the private sector and get payment specialists, payment operators, etc. Etc. Into the room.

29:34
Jens Seidl
So I’m very much looking forward to that and I’m grateful for the support we’re getting from Swift in making this happen.

29:42
HORE Shriyanka
I think, you know, we’re equally excited, Jens. And I think the Policy Lab collab idea originally, you know, started with our discussion and now we are doing multiple Policy Lab collabs from Zurich to Kuala Lumpur to Istanbul, Hong Kong, and we’re very excited to bring it all back into Miami later in the year for Sibos at the end of September. So Istanbul will really be that final pit stop before we bring all of these topical deep dives and regional deep dives back into the second annual Policy Lab at Sibos in Miami this year.

30:25
Jens Seidl
That’s great. And since we talked about the index and we will talk about that more in Istanbul, is it already available for public consumption or what’s the plan around the index?

30:37
HORE Shriyanka
Yes, we took some time to make it public, but it is available on Swift.com to download. We’ve also done a number of closed door bilateral readouts as well as to a few policy committees as early test runs because we needed to understand is the data valuable, is the research going to drive action at a domestic and cross border level? And we’ve had very positive feedback and confidence. So it is available on Swift.com and I’m also happy to share the link for our listeners to download it so they come prepared to Istanbul.

31:18
Jens Seidl
Okay, great. Well then look for the description of this podcast episode in your podcast app and that should include that link. Hopefully. If not, check out Swift.com but maybe just jumping quickly back to the workshop. I mean, sometimes workshops can be talking shops. I don’t think that’s what we’re going for. So what would be a good outcome from your perspective? What is it that you’d hope that the participants in that workshop can take away from the workshop and take back home with them?

31:53
HORE Shriyanka
So, to be very frank, the Payments Optimization Index gives you evidence for action, right? And then this whole piece of research is also accompanied by a playbook. And this is where we believe that when we convene we can prioritize action, collective action specifically. And the idea is to examine and learn from each other in terms of strategies that are already being deployed in the market, which are the ones which are most effective and to have this collective insight from the group to drive collaboration, coordinated action, and also maybe create a little bit of impetus. Because if the index gets repeated, you want to look better on the index and Markets are already doing that. The G20 is a great end goal. The G20 targets a great end goal for coordinated action.

32:55
HORE Shriyanka
But this index and the Playbook and this workshop all bring data, insights, action, coordination and then, you know, tie it up to real outcome and impact for the industry. So that’s the real goal against.

33:13
Jens Seidl
Sounds great. Excellent. Good. Well, I’m conscious of time, but before we wrap up, are there any other final thoughts you’d like to share with our audience? Any outlook maybe on what’s beyond this workshop? Any. Yeah. Any final thoughts you’d like to share?

33:34
HORE Shriyanka
First and foremost, thank you for having me on the podcast, Jens. I look forward to being at the conference and doing, you know, and taking questions on the index on the frictions that we see. Because it’s been built over the years from tackling frictions, you know, making changes on the Swift network, but also trying to understand where we need collective action. Because at the end of the day, payments is a team sport and Swift’s role is to convene, create frameworks of progress, scale innovation and, you know, sustain that momentum. So I look forward to ensuring that the index drives outcome, that the Playbook becomes a true piece of coordinated action, like a chart of a course, coordinated action and most importantly, the networking and the ideas and the exchanges at the workshop.

34:33
HORE Shriyanka
And with that, thank you once again to our listeners for listening till the end.

34:40
Jens Seidl
Great. Thank you so much for that. Shriyanka. Thanks for joining the P.I.T. Exchange and thanks to all our listeners for tuning in today. Please do follow like, do what you need to do on your podcast platform to stay in touch and don’t miss any future episodes. Thank you and have a good one.