Sibos 2010: recovery

It's Monday morning and everything is really getting started. Every last t has been crossed and i dotted. With that in mind, there is just time to take a look at the third and final theme that delegates will be discussing in Amsterdam - recovery - and how payments can play their role in achieving this.

The economic crisis that started in 2007 and the complexity it has caused have re-emphasised the financial importance of payments to banks. Those who truly appreciate this and who take advantage of the latest advances in technology will benefit both themselves through cost savings and their customers through improved time to market. Those who fall behind, however, will lose out. To survive, financial institutions must become truly agile.

By doing so banks will benefit from:

• Lower costs from easier to roll out payment process efficiencies across the merged enterprise
• Less hardware, software and labour
• Less financial crime, resulting from greater data availability and real time analysis
• Improved time to market with new products, bringing more revenue
• The ability to leverage payment volume, to improve liquidity and pricing power

In the current economic climate and beyond, greater agility translates into higher margins, increased volume, more customers, and better market share for financial institutions. In short, greater agility can be the key to recovery.