The global financial community converged in Frankfurt for Sibos 2025 with one overarching theme: "The Next Frontiers of Global Finance." Key discussions took place around interoperability, standards, risk, and regulation. If this sounds familiar, that’s because it is.
We’ve been talking for decades about how to become more resilient, faced with new risks as our finance systems get more digital, and more complex. The real questions are: How fast? Who's leading the way? And how do we do it in a way that brings all global regions along with us?
Eastnets was at the heart of these critical conversations at Sibos. Our CEO, Hazem Mulhim, shared his vision on how AI can make global trade faster and more transparent, while Marie-Christine Diaz showed us how financial institutions can modernize compliance on the cloud with AWS. Nasser Sweileh and Zied Smiri tackled the complex problem of trade-based financial crime, calling attention to the transformative power of AI in mitigating risk.
After a week of sessions, the real breakthroughs will now come from joining the dots between systems, partners, and data - breaking the silos that have been slowing us down.
Here are our seven key takeaways from Sibos 2025.
1. Interoperability & Standards are now central, not nice-to-have
The Sibos programme made it clear: connectivity, interoperability, and resilience are the essential infrastructure for the future of payments, securities, and trade. The industry is moving beyond compliance for compliance sake, embracing standards like ISO 20022 and Swift's CBPR+ as a foundation for business growth and seamless cross-border flows.
This validates our continued investment in ensuring our solutions are fully compliant. Our PaymentsSafe solution is purpose-built for this very need, helping clients reduce friction and modernize their systems by automating financial messaging across all networks and standards, supporting compliance with evolving regulations.
Here’s what our Principal Product Development Manager, Marie-Christine Diaz had to say about it, "By modernising Eastnets financial crime and payments platforms on AWS, our customers’ transformation strategies can comply faster with localisation mandates and adopt AI/ML innovations in a sustainable way, while reducing significantly the total cost of ownership (TCO) and the operational risks."
Marie-Christine Diaz’ workshop at Sibos explored how financial institutions can modernize compliance and payments infrastructure securely, at scale. Keeping Payments Safe with Eastnets on AWS looked at the strategic drivers behind our migration to AWS and shared lessons in cloud architecture, security, and multi-tenancy. Attendees came away with a greater understanding around faster deployments, cost efficiency, and resilience.
2. Real-time, instant payments + risk = higher stakes
Consumers want faster payments. Banks want fewer risks. It’s the same story, but are we any closer to solving the speed-versus-risk trade-off?
A big one for Eastnets at this year’s event was the announcement of our strategic partnership with LSEG. The launch of World-Check on Demand, which integrates directly into Eastnet’s SafeWatch Screening, means that clients can benefit from always-on monitoring for faster, more precise decisions and stronger defenses against financial crime.
Sessions across Sibos highlighted the growing threat of authorised push payment (APP) fraud and the industry’s response through initiatives such as the FATF’s updated Verification of Payee (VoP) requirement and national frameworks like Confirmation of Payee (CoP), both of which aim to strengthen payment security and protect institutions processing EU-bound transactions. Eastnets is already helping clients prepare, as a qualified Registration and Verification Mechanism (RVM) provider. We’re enabling financial institutions to comply with VoP regulations by embedding secure, real-time validation into their payment workflows.
Instant payments unlock better financial inclusion, economic participation, and new commercial models. But realising this promise requires trust. The ability to prevent fraud in real time by moving beyond fragmented, rule-based systems toward intelligent, connected risk detection.
“A holistic approach connects the dots across payment channels, payment instruments, and compliance domains. It also breaks down the risk monitoring silos between fraud, anti-money laundering (AML), sanctions, and know your customer (KYC) processes up to the original purchase or trade transaction itself. It requires orchestrating risk controls dynamically and embedding modular risk scoring across the entire financial supply chain transaction lifecycle.” - Marie-Christine Diaz
3. AI, ML and emerging tech are pushing the frontier, but governance & trust are critical
Unsurprisingly, AI was a big talking point at this year’s Sibos conference. For years, clients have been asking: How explainable is your AI? How do you handle bias and false positives? How do you prepare for regulatory scrutiny? What did Sibos say about trust…
As Daoud put it, “Clients need to understand the logic, audit the decisions, and feel confident that the technology is serving their compliance and security goals without introducing new risks."
This focus on trust is what drives our landmark strategic alliance with Facephi, another big announcement we were thrilled to make at this year’s conference. This partnership unites European biometric leadership with Middle Eastern compliance expertise to build the world’s first end-to-end anti-fraud defense ecosystem. By merging compliance and biometrics, our goal is to set a new global standard for secure, inclusive, and seamless, end to end, digital finance.
4. Regulation is both a tailwind and a constraint
We complain about regulation slowing us down. But what if it’s the very thing forcing us to build better, safer, more sustainable systems that actually last? Sibos 2025 painted a picture where regulation is necessary for harmonised global standards, better compliance frameworks, real‑time and 24/7 payments, and faster adoption of ISO 20022.
This is because regulations that mandate new data formats or require real-time controls force institutions to modernize and upgrade their systems, ultimately building a more resilient and transparent industry.
At Eastnets, we see regulation as a driver of progress. Our tools for screening, KYC, and real-time monitoring help clients keep up with new rules, and get ahead of them - turning compliance from a burden into a competitive advantage.
5. Financial crime & compliance are moving from “back office cost” to a competitive enabler
Discussions at Sibos reinforced that the reputational, regulatory, and financial damage from fraud and money laundering is too great to be treated as a mere "cost of doing business."
So, if the repercussions are so devastating, why isn’t compliance part of businesses’ value proposition?
Our financial crime and compliance ecosystems are well-positioned for this new reality, especially in markets where cross-border flows and trade-based money laundering are growing risks.
At the event, Nasser Sweileh, Financial Crime & Compliance Expert, and Zied Smiri, Pre-Sales Team Leader, discussed mis-invoicing as means for trade-based financial crime, and how organizations can mitigate risks through AI-powered financial crime compliance in the session: AI Against Mis-Invoicing: Tackling Trade-Based Money Laundering in Trade Finance.
"The most forward-thinking institutions are integrating compliance into their core business. It’s no longer about simply filing reports; it's about using technology to proactively prevent crime and protect your business, your partners, and your customers." - Zied Smiri
6. Digital assets, securities, post-trade, and tokenization are accelerating
Can a blockchain ledger really outpace stablecoins and keep money safe? During the event, Swift and 30+ global banks announced a new blockchain-based digital ledger. The plan is to "record, sequence and validate transactions and enforce rules through smart contracts." The response was cautious. Without robust fraud protection from the start, this move could be a huge risk.
The industry is moving past proofs-of-concept and into practical applications for tokenization in trade finance, securities, and post-trade settlement.
Our experts at Sibos highlighted the importance of enabling clients with tools that can securely integrate these new digital asset flows into existing infrastructures. The digitization of trade finance, for example, requires sophisticated solutions that provide the necessary auditability, screening, and security for these new forms of value. We’re providing the bridge between legacy systems and the new - ensuring that innovation doesn't come at the expense of trust.
7. Global standards meet regional priorities
While the core themes were global, the regional nuances told their own stories.
- In the Middle East and Africa, inclusion and access are driving change. Regulators are pushing instant payment schemes and tougher AML standards, especially in markets emerging from FATF monitoring. Real-time controls, trade finance monitoring, and compliance tools like SafeTrade can help banks grow safely while fighting financial crime.
- Across Europe, the conversation is dominated by regulation, from instant payments and ESG to AI governance and T+1 settlement. Eastnets is helping European banks lead the charge with advanced sanctions screening, ISO 20022 readiness, and instant payment fraud detection.
- In the GCC, transformation is happening at speed. Banks are diving into digital assets, tokenization, and open banking - often faster than regulators can keep up. Our modular platforms and real-time risk tools give them the agility to innovate confidently, backed by global compliance credibility.
- In Asia-Pacific, interoperability and cross-border payment corridors are top of mind. As the region links up through ASEAN payment networks and QR code standards, AI and machine learning are powering a new wave of smart compliance. Eastnets’ AI-driven AML and fraud tools are helping APAC banks stay connected and compliant.
- And in the Americas, the focus is on resilience and security. In the US, cyber risk and governance dominate the agenda, while in Latin America, instant payments and financial inclusion are accelerating. Eastnets is supporting both - building secure, scalable compliance infrastructure for mature markets, and helping emerging ones roll out real-time payments safely.
This regional diversity shows the importance of a flexible approach. Eastnets is proud to support banks in each of these markets with solutions that meet their specific needs.
As Hazem Mulhim concluded in his session, "Innovation is global, but implementation is local. The key to our industry's future is collaboration, not just between institutions, but across geographies and across the entire ecosystem, to build a system that is both universally connected and regionally resilient."