Welcome to Finextra's live coverage of the Swift Business Forum New York 2018. This event will focus on important issues affecting the financial industry, exploring how far and how fast the transformation of financial services will take place in the US and how firms can win in a digital-first world.
17.09: That concludes the Swift Business Forum New York 2018. Thank you very much for following on our live blog today.
17.08: There is a permission to be bold, Webster notes, and it is ok to make mistakes. Understand what tolerance exists for this failure, but it is how we learn and grow as a community. She cites Yawah from this morning, saying that participating is the best way to promote change and seize the opportunities that exist.
17.05: Webster returns to the stage for some closing remarks. She begins by noting the importance of trust that has been seen in a number of sessions. Then there are ecosystems - solving the problems that the B2B payments landscape faces require players from across the ecosystem.
17.03: Realise how norms can change over time, Case advises. What might seem ridiculous today may be mainstream really quickly. Usually it isn't that the technology isn't ready, it is that the humans are not ready for the technology.
16.56: An audience question asks Case which technology makes her least calm. Her answer is Slack - there's so much going on in that app. So many alerts on your phone come from machines rather than humans, and she recommends people try to manage their alerts.
16.53: Case says that the overall trend is that we are going from a mechanical society where everything is black and white, to an organic society where perhaps 80% is ok but 20% needs attention. It is similar to humans getting a cold - we don't die because we have antibodies, so how can this idea be applied to the 20%?
16.50: Leibbrandt mentions embedding the payment in the transaction as a calm technology, such as with Uber where you just get out of the car. Case agrees, and says that transparency and tracking in a transaction is critical. She adds that a personal database is another way to go - so if you go to the doctor, they update your database rather than their central database.
16.46: How can you apply calm technology to financial services? Case says that trading apps on smartphones are one good way, they are fun to look at and intuitive. She also mentions a banking app that is text based with excellent customer service, giving you the alerts that you want regarding transactions and deposits. Frictionless apps will win.
16.43: Gottfried Leibbrandt, Swift's CEO, now takes to the stage for a conversation with Amber. He notes the smart fridge that Case mentioned, saying that if your smart fridge is getting too hot it is probably mining bitcoin for someone else.
16.41: The right amount of technology is the minimum amount required to solve the problem. Customer service plays a key role here. Also, technology should work even when it fails - think of an escalator becoming stairs when broken. In the world of apps, being able to operate offline or with just one bar of signal will give that app a boost - such as Whatsapp.
16.38: Case adds that machines shouldn't act like humans, and human's shouldn't act like machines. By working alongside machines as tools, we will have a much more interesting relationship with them, she says.
16.33: Case says that what we really need is calm technology. Technology that sits in the background and amplifies our humanness. Technology shouldn't require all of our attention, just some of it, and only when necessary.
16.30: 50 billion devices will be online by 2020 according to Cisco. Case points to some devices that we potentially don't need, from 'smart' watches that tell you exactly what your phone tells you, to the smart fridge which can become part of the dystopian kitchen of the future. She says we need to start developing technologies as if everything will go wrong.
16.27: Case begins by asking the audience to hold up their mobile phones. The quicker a delegate held up their phone, the more cyborg they are!
16.24: Time now for the closing plenary, which is exploring the theme of the digital human. Our guide for this session is Amber Case, Cyborg Anthropologist and Harvard Fellow.
16.19: The programming of the organisation includes teaching how to become the CFO, the CEO and the CIO of their lives. They also bring women role models into the classroom, and bring the girls they educate into a financial services workplace to see the different types of careers that exist.
16.16: The CSR Partner Address for the Swift Business Forum New York 2018 is being given by Betsy Kelder, executive director at Invest in Girls, a financial literacy non-profit.
16.15: Karen Webster comes back to the stage and announces that today's Business Forum has had over 700 registered delegates.
15.54: That concludes the technology panel. In a short while we will be back in the main plenary room, ahead of a CSR address and the final keynote of the day.
15.53: Investment in talent and technology is important, but it needs to be matched in the company vision, Parikh says. He cites Google's CEO saying that the company is an AI-first/machine learning first company, and this is seen across every division in the organisation. Everybody knows and understands the vision.
15.49: The skills gap is a real issue for the industry at the moment - data scientists are in high demand. Google has a data science platform, Parikh says, which is an educational platform to try to give people the skillsets they need to be an effective data scientist.
15.45: Blalock summons the theme of the Business Forum, saying that financial institutions need to seize the opportunity of new technologies. He says lots of banks have AI projects, but they need to move faster to have an institution-wide view of AI to take the opportunity that exists now, before third parties beat them to the punch.
15.42: Parikh says that financial services companies generate so much data, and if they have the ability to add real-time analytics and machine learning to this they can benefit and create new revenue streams.
15.38: The old paradigm of security was to protect the perimiter. Parikh says this is still valid, but on top of that you have to bring up multiple teams that are trained on the new technology models. Blalock says that the organisation has to have the right tone set in the C-suite, that team mentality is important. Infrastructure resiliency is also vital.
15.33: Sharma says the leverage of blockchain technology and big data has a huge potential. Blockchain provides a shared data platform. There's a key aspect to these technologies, he says, which is how you keep the customer at the centre of what you develop. This is a journey, and you need to be willing to fail. You have to have your key teams playing with the emerging technology so that when they time comes, they are ready to go, Sharma adds. Talent is a crucial driver for the whole process.
15.29: Blalock says there are two types of digital transformation - digitising what you already have, and then planning processes and solutions around a fully digital landscape.
15.26: The challenge is to develop new technologies that evolve in step with customer demands, Powell says. It is about finding the right partners and having a true understanding of how the technology works, he says. The real change is when you think different about how technology will solve the problems you have.
15.19: In financial services, there are a lot of regulation and compliance demands. For a business like Google Cloud, they need to have the capabilities to respond to these needs. Security at every layer is vital, Parikh says, and customers need to understand how they can use the tools available to have the best controls possible. Blalock says the way Intel sees the cloud is a way to deliver infrastructure. You cannot make the shift to digital until you update your infrastructure, and the cloud is step one in this journey, he says.
15.18: Machine learning and AI has been transformative for the Google business, Parikh says. Google has machine learning APIs that can provide real-time answers, for example. He says that they want more and more people to be able to take advantage of these technologies.
15.13: Sharma says that AI is in its infancy at the moment. We are seeing a change from predictive to prescriptive right now. When machines make assumption on a prescriptive model, what does that mean from a risk perspective? He adds that the ability to move a real-time is still not there - data has to be real-time and then so does decision-making.
15.10: Young asks Blalock how AI might change the landscape. He says that AI will usher in a much better world, solving real-world problems in a fraction of the time. It is an extension of advanced analytics. Financial services is a data business, he says, and we are going from a person-based ecosystem to a machine-based ecosystem, which massively ramps up the amount of data being generated. Overall, Blalock says that we are only leveraging 1% of that data, so there is a huge opportunity to grow this. We are in the early stages of AI, at the top of the 2nd innings Blalock says in a baseball metaphor.
15.06: An opening audience poll of the session asks which technologies see at the forefront of digital transformation. APIs top the poll with 45%, followed by AI with 34%, Blockchain on 11% and the sharing economy (9%). A follow up question asks how prepared organisations are to fully leverage these technology changes - 'Somewhat prepared' dominates with 59%.
15.03: Young kicks off by saying that we've heard throughout the day that disruption is happening all around us. Significant challenges still lie ahead for disruptive technologies to truly change the financial services sector, which is what this conversation will dive into.
14.59: Almost time for the panel discussion on technology enabling digital transformation. The panellists for this discussion are Mike Blalock, general manager, Financial Services Industry Vertical at Intel; Amar Parikh, customer engineer with Google Cloud
; James Powell, CIO and CTO of Engineering for Digital Asset; and Saket Sharma, CIO, Treasury Services Technology at BNY Mellon
. The moderator will be Craig Young, SWIFT's CIO.
14.30: That concludes the domestic payments panel. Time for the afternoon break now, we will be back in around 30 minutes with a breakout session looking at how technology enables digital transformation.
14.29: Masters asks the panel for their predictions in the next three years of domestic payments. Waterhouse says the 2020 goal for RTP is his main focus. Wolf says that there has to be fewer rails in time. This will create simplicity and differentiation between the available rails. Loftus says that she has smaller goals - 2019 and 2020 will be big years for corporate adoption of digital payments. She adds that she prefers to talk about the client experience rather than the rail that the transaction travels on. Customer criteria can inform the bank which rail to use.
14.24: Around 50% of B2B payments in the US are made via cheque, Waterhouse says, which makes the reconcilliation quite inefficient. Loftus adds that her institution realised that internally they were cutting a lot of cheques, so institutions actually have a chance to help make the change to more transparent and efficient payment forms.
14.20: Visa and Mastercard have huge reach at consumer level, but they don't have the real-time infrastructure currently that options such as RTP has, Waterhouse says. It is a competitive world and we will see how it plays out over the next five years.
14.18: Any business that is doing any business with consumers is revisiting that experience, Loftus says. Corporate treasurers expect the simplicity they experience in their personal lives to be coming to their corporate life as well. The experience needs to be seamless, end-to-end. A consequence of RTP is to bring the consumer and corporate sides of banks together, Waterhouse says.
14.14: Poll time! The audience is asked if their organisation is offering API connectivity for its clients to effect payments. The response is largely positive, with two options 'Yes, we are live' and 'Yes, we are in the planning/implementation stage' both polling 36%. Perhaps surprisingly, more than one in every five (21%) say 'No, we are not considering APIs at this time'. Bringing up the rear is 'Yes, we will use an intermediary for this purpose' (6%).
14.10: Customers need to understand that real-time payments are coming to them whether they are ready or not, Wolf notes. Reconciliation processes need to be thought about - for example a payment made at 23.59:45 at night counts as being paid on that day. Waterhouse encourages the audience to think about how the move to real-time payments can be transformational.
14.04: Banks have scarce investment dollars, as to their commercial clients, so most will hold fire on moving to a specific faster payments rail until they know where their end user is heading, Wolf explains. It can be hard to distinguish between all of the newer rails. Loftus says a use case approach is really helpful here, talking about package delivery, how quickly you want a transaction to get somewhere, do you want to pay for a deluxe payments experience or would you rather have a slightly slower but cheaper option?
14.01. Will the Fed enter the real-time payments fray? Loftus says we don't know if that will happen, but ubiquity is key. Waterhouse says there is a chance that could confuse the market.
13.55: An audience question asks if Zelle is going international - Foust says it is on a future roadmap, but the company has a lot more to do domestically in the nearer term.
13.52: Loftus says that the US has learned from other jurisdictions about what can happen when fraud controls are not embedded in a real-time payments system at the start, and can benefit from this. Building in levels to alert the customer when they are making a payment outside of their contacts, for example, can help alert users and build trust.
13.50: Fraud comes up in conversation, with Wolf saying that fraud is a daily concern for customers, whichever rails the payments are travelling along. She says that we have to work as an industry to determine how to resolve the problems of payments routed in error, and to educate users before they press the button that they are making a payment that is final.
13.47: Talking about Zelle, Foust says it has just celebrated its first anniversary. He says they also feel the ubiquity pain, but that there is room for growth and improvement. He says that Zelle is the front end, and they have to protect the consumer experience.
13.43: The first poll of the session asks whether banks' commercial clients are interested in moving volume to new low value payment rails? Clients want to wait and see how volume shifts across payment rails was the reaction from just over half of the audience (51%). The option 'yes, client are moving some volume from other payment rails' came in second place, scoring 32%. 10% said that clients are moving material volume from other payment rails, while just 7% said no, clients prefer existing rails.
13.39: Ubiquity by 2020 is a goal for TCH's RTP, and Waterhouse says it is possible, and they will at least be pretty close by then. The plan for next year is to bring on 1000s of banks per month, he adds. Loftus says that J.P. Morgan is all in on real-time payments, but likens it to having your first telephone - you need others to have signed up as well to get the benefits. Product development and use case development can create ubiquity.
13.35: The session gets underway with Masters asking Waterhouse about TCH's real-time payments system, and why the takeup of it has been challenging. Waterhouse says the market has seen a lot of disruption. They don't have a government mandate, so this was a "self-inflicted pain", as such there is no set in stone end date that motivates sign up. However, he says that momentum is starting to build, and that competitive juices will fuel sign up.
13.18: Coming up in around 15 minutes, we have a panel discussion on disruption in the domestic payments landscape. The conversation will be moderated by Ryan Masters, executive director of Strategic Relationships, North America at SWIFT. Joining Masters are Eric Foust, senior director, Product Management with Early Warning; Emma Loftus, managing director, global head of Payments and Receivables, Treasury Services at J.P. Morgan;
Russ Waterhouse, executive vice president, Product Development and Strategy for The Clearing House; and Stephanie Wolf, head of Global Financial Institutions and Global Government Banking Sales, Global Transaction Services at Bank of America Merrill Lynch.
12.59: That concludes the lunch session on fraud. Coming up at 13.30, our attention will switch back to payments, but this time we will be exploring the domestic US payments landscape. See you in half an hour.
12.55: Are there a lack of cyber professionals in the industry? Reddel says that is absolutely the case, there is a deficit of approximately 2 million cyber security professionals. Boawn says that people in an operations role have the skills to identify fraud, as they are highly attuned to identifying items that are incorrect.
12.49: In terms of new fraud threats, Boawn says that new account frauds are a particular pain point the industry is facing so far. They take a multichannel approach, so it is important that fraud programmes in institutions think about all entry and exit points.
12.43: Think of the components of cyber and fraud as part of the same ecosystem, Boawn advised. By working together, they can benefit each other.
12.42: Booz Allen assisted a global financial services organisation to leverage existing traditional cyber solutions to enhance fraud monitoring. They defined requirements, with the fraud and cyber teams working together to define intelligence requirements to parse data and optimised feeds to be used by fraud detection technologies. The next step was to analyse the data, which enabled the company to stop losses.
12.33: A cyber fusion centre combines a variety of capabilities, such as cyber threat intelligence, threat defence operations, cyber security incident response team, attack surface reductions, continuous testing, and continuous red teaming. These teams have their own parameters, but crucially interact and work together to detect, protect and prevent.
12.27: Reddel emphasises the point that traditional security and compliance cannot match the threats that fraud poses. A cyber fusion centre approach can overcome the evolving challenges posed by contemporary threat actors - such as organised crime, nation state agents and fraudsters. He notes that threats today are very sophisticated, and want to exist in your network for as long as possible, gathering information over a prolonged period of time, rather than a 'smash and grab' raid.
12.22: Advanced analytics can help prevent fraud, as can threat intelligence and a coordinated response. The key with these, Boawn says, is how you apply these tactics specifically to fraud. Fusing cyber operations with fraud management can reduce surprises, bring faster actions and improve efficiencies.
12.19: Boawn begins the session by discussing the definitions of cybersecurity, such as account takeover, new account fraud, and business email compromise. The latter of these can be fairly low key, but still very successful.
12.07: While the lunch break takes place, there are a couple of 'lunch and learn' sessions for delegates to engage with. The one that we are covering is called Fraud in the Cyber Age, which is presented by Amy Boawn, Senior Associate, Fraud Solutions Lead at Booz Allen Hamilton, and Eric Reddel, Principal, Financial Services Solution Integration Lead with Booz Allen Hamilton.
12.01: The session closes with a final poll question: which players have the most potential to transfer B2B payments cross-border? The most popular answer, perhaps expectedly considering the audience, is FIs and FI rails with 52%. In joint second place are DLT/Crypto networks and an entirely new player yet to emerge, both with 14%. Alt networks, e.g. ACH; and card networks trail, both with 10%.
11.53: Galit says that openness and security are more important than any specific infrastructure. Who is in a position to deliver that? Swift is one example he gives. In a digital world, connectivity becomes increasingly commoditised. Fintechs are positioned quite well to think about and deliver a ubiquitous global payments infrastructure.
11.51: Banks are moving away from armchair product management and towards developing client-centric offerings. If the bank and the corporate together can't find a good fix to the problem, it may be time to bring in a third party than can help, Kohli adds.
11.47: Kohli says that Citi is very bullish about working with fintechs, trying to capture the entrepreneurial spriit to their approach. He says there is a happy medium, not just competing with fintechs but also collaborating with them. The bank makes sure the fintechs they work with pass every filter of trust and security that the bank's own proprietory solutions have to.
11.45: The security aspect with fintechs is still a concern, Michaud says. For Galit, addressing this issue is to bring together the best people from fintech and the best from the financial institution side. Trust and security is vital, and he says his company has no choice other than to be best in class, and invests accordingly. There is no sizzle without the steak, he adds.
11.43: Another poll question asks what role blockchain/DLT will play in solving B2B cross-border payments challenges. For the delegates, a supporting roll won out with 54% of respondents thinking this. A critical role grabbed 17% of the vote, while on the flip side some 16% said no role. Regulators are being quite innovative in this area, Kohli notes, but there are also problems that arise, such as who holds what level of responsibility for KYC.
11.36: Are there any opportunities for crypto rails, Webster asks. Galit says there are opportunities, but they are more likely with the people in the room - the banks - rather than those outside. There are problems with the infrastructure as it exists today, and so people should be wide open to thinking differently, he says.
11.33: Galit says that transparency is more important than speed to him if it is a cross-border accounts payable, However, real-time payments do offer some advantages. Kohli picks up this idea and says that instant payments are the future and are underrated as things stand today. Faster payments are an enabler of new business models. In a remote country, the differentiator in business might be how quickly the seller gets paid.
11.30: Time for a first poll question of the session: What do corporates most value in a cross-border B2B payments solution? The major winner here is the transparency of the payment (83%). Trailing behind are speed (7%), data associated with the payment (7%), cost of payment (3%) and, very surprisingly, security of the payment polls precisely 0%. Michaud says that she would happily pay a premium for security of payment.
11.27: Kohli says he expect the commercial partners in this process to step up, which is something he is seeing. Then he notes with pleasant surprise that the regulators and market infrastructures have been stepping up to support progress, citing examples from India and Australia. On the negative side, he says that some institutions are not stepping up, investing time and resources now to create long-term solutions for customers.
11.24: Galit says his company will look at what infrastructure exists and what needs to be built in a way to address problems in the international payments space. They will put pressure on banks to act where they see a need, but added that this is a very collaborative process.
11.21: There needs to be a willingness for the industry to solve its problems, Kohli says. He notes that gpi is a great example of this. Not only does it bring transparency to international payments, but it also aids the speed and cost element of the transaction. Michaud agrees that gpi is a way to solve a number of the issues that have existed in the international payments space, and that collaboration between banks and corporates is essential to properly address the issues that both face.
11.19: Kohli says that his bank has a good vantage point of the industry with clients ranging from large multinational corporates, huge technology companies as well as aggregators. There are challenges around cost, speed, and transparency that manifest in different ways across all of these different companies. He says that the challenge for the bank is to focus of every element of these challenges across the scope of its customer base.
11.14: Galit says that his company looks at how the world and commerce is changing, what problems this creates, and how they can be solved. Barriers are coming down with the digitisation of payments. The West and the East are coming closer together. Technology also has the effect of levelling the field for entry into the world of global commerce. There are also the development of new network platforms where buyers and sellers are meeting, changing the makeup of supply chains.
11.09: Michaud says that GE has around 200 ERPs and 300 banking partners, so the internal processes are complex to start with, before even dealing with the external work and possible lost payments. Transparency over payments is critical, and then there's a key focus on ensuring at the macro level that internal and external actors are not defrauding the company.
11.05: Starting with an icebreaker, Webster asks which song best sums up the state of B2B international payments right now. Galit goes with Don't Stop Believing by Journey. For Kohli, it is We Didn't Start the Fire by Billy Joel! He says that during times of rapid change such as the one we are in, we always come through it stronger. Sticking with the fire theme, Michaud goes for Burning Ring of Fire by Johnny Cash. Sadly, we don't have the audio of these three classics.
11.00: Karen Webster is moderating the first breakout session of the day: Re-engineering international payments for a fast, digital age. Joining her to discuss this topic are Scott Galit, CEO and Director at Payoneer; Manish Kohli, managing director, global head of Institutional Payments and Receivables, Treasury and Trade Solutions with Citi; and Kristen Michaud, managing director of Treasury Operations at GE.
10.28: That concludes Foroohar's keynote, which has certainly given the audience plenty to think on. After the 30-minute break we are heading into, we will be covering a session on re-engineering international payments.
10.26: Data is dollars, Foroohar says. Consumers are starting to realise this, and are increasingly wanting more as a result. Trust is key, and this is an opportunity for banks. Not just knowing the customer, but servicing them in a way they want. Banks can protect their margins by adding value. Protecting data is one of the first things that banks can do in this regard.
10.22: Building ecosystems is the key to success. This is something that Ant Financial has done, and it can be done in the US even with the different regulatory environment. US banks are sitting on a tremendous amount of data that is not being monetised currently. This is a natural evolution of what banks do already, particularly as the trusted advisor.
10.20: There are opportunities for financial services providers in this world, Foroohar reassures the room. To thrive, banks need to deeply understand the business model that is challenging them. Mega mergers are not a silver bullet. Think about facilitating networks of users. This may require a whole new worldview.
10.18: RIght now there is nothing to stop a company like Google or Amazon coming into this space in the US, Foroohar says. The commonality is that a tech platform player can sit in the middle of a commerce market and take a percentage of every transaction. This is very similar to a traditional financial services model. Amazon could very quickly become a player of scale in the checking account market if it wanted to, she says.
10.17: What should traditional banks take away from this? Foroohar says that Ant Financial provided confidence and trust through its simple refund policy, which was huge. The company also has a credit scoring arm, and through data collection Ant Financial can tailor personal financial strategies.
10.12: Turning to China, Foroohar says it is the nation closest to eliminating cash. Ant Financial has a valuation of $150bn - worth about 50% more than Goldman Sachs, and it shows how China is an innovator in digital payments. This is a company like Facebook, but with a bank sitting on top of it, which is a really significant layering.
10.08: When you have the data, you can enhance it into smart data through applying technology such as machine learning. Now is the time to understand how that can work in the financial sector, and get involved in it, Foroohar says. She gave the example that she had spoken to the CEO of an insurance firm at Davos who was looking to acquire data firms rather than insurance rivals.
10.05: The tech firms have become this powerful through a number of reasons - one of which is the power of data. The personal data we willing give them is essentially the new oil, Foroohar says. Trade has been flat in traditional goods and services for the past five years or so, but digital goods and services trade has grown by a factor of 45 over the past decade.
10.01: There are major ramifications for the large financial institutions from these big tech companies. They control the majority of the world's corporate wealth, and are also active on the political lobbying stage. They also have a cognitive hold on us, with smartphones proliferating.
09.59: Technology is the new systemically important industry, Foroohar says. She starts by noting that companies such as Facebook, Google, Apple and the like should be thought of more as countries rather than tech companies, based on the sheer scale of the users of the their networks. Firms in this area can both compete in the market and become the market, Foroohar says.
09.56: Now it is time for this morning's industry keynote: Re-imagining Financial Services. Our presenter is Rana Foroohar, global business columnist at The Financial Times and global economic analyst at CNN.
09.51: As part of its core DNA, Swift will bring on the whole industry, but it will not wait for the slowest common denominator, says Shah. Swift acts on behalf of banks with aggression, speed and purpose, he adds.
09.50: Returning to the point that what you get out of Swift is what you put into it, Shah says that he sees how banks interact with Swift from his position. Those banks that engage with the Swift management team on a holistic basis actually influence Swift and also get a lot out of it. Those banks that don't do this and just watch don't get that opportunity. It is a coalition of the willing, and gpi is a great example of this.
09.47: Swift has a lot of intelligence that banks can incorporate to their benefit. Shah notes that Swift will be launching a payments control service next month, which will allow banks to automatically stop suspicious payments, among other benefits.
09.45: APIs offer another option for innovation, and Swift is working with banks to capture this opportunity, Shah says. He also adds that it is important not to forget securities, and new technologies can be deployed here as well. Cyber - the threat is here and will evolve rapidly. Prevention, detection and recovery are all vital. Shah says that there is a competitive advantage option for firms in this field.
09.42: What you get out of Swift is what you put into it, Shah says. We have to sort out the substance from the hype in today's payments world. Banks, as owners, have become far more aggressive in requesting Swift to update the global payments network, he says, and that Swift gpi is one of the outcomes of this push.
09.40: The community of Alibaba is cited by Webster as an example of how innovation can make B2B transactions optimised. With that, Webster invites Yawar Shah, chairman of the SWIFT Board of Directors and managing director, Institutional Clients Group at Citi, to the stage for his chairman's address.
09.35: Webster notes that the conference theme is 'Seize the Opportunity'. She says this is an important opportunity for stakeholders in the global payments market to enhance B2B transactions to be frictionless, transparent and efficient.
09.30: The Business Forum gets underway with a video setting up the theme for the day - the transformation of financial services that is underway, and how firms can win in a digital first world. Our host for the day, Karen Webster, CEO and Founder of PYMNTS.com, then takes to the stage.
08.25: Good morning from Pier 60 of the Chelsea Piers in New York City, venue for today's Swift Business Forum. We've got a packed agenda to cover throughout the day, which will be getting underway in around 35 minutes.