At Sibos 2025 in Frankfurt, it was clear – payments are accelerating into new territory. The sessions and side discussions consistently circled around three transformative themes: AI and Agentic AI, ISO20022, and digital assets. Each is reshaping the industry in profound ways, and together, they point to a future that is faster, smarter, and more resilient.
AI & Agentic AI: From Fraud Detection to Operational Excellence
AI’s impact on payments was everywhere at Sibos. The dialogue moved beyond theoretical use cases to tangible strategies for fraud management and operational efficiency. Agentic agents — AI systems capable of autonomous decision-making — are now being leveraged to automate payment requests, validate transactions, and handle exception processing without human intervention. This shift promises not only faster payment flows but also significant reductions in operational costs. The broader implication is clear: as machine-to-machine communication becomes the norm, financial institutions must rethink risk management and streamline processes in an always-on environment.
At Nasdaq Verafin we see the transformational opportunity that AI and Agentic AI can create. As part of our vision to automate compliance, we have introduced our Agentic AI Workforce, automating high-volume, low-complexity compliance tasks. Initially targeting sanctions screening and enhanced due diligence, we aim to reduce manual workloads and accelerate investigations — allowing human teams to focus on complex, high-value analysis.
ISO20022: More Than Compliance—A Platform for Innovation
The migration to ISO20022 has largely been managed as a compliance exercise of meeting the new standards, but at Sibos, it was evident that ISO20022 is now an enabler for innovation. By enriching payment messages with more data, institutions can unlock new opportunities for risk assessment and product development. The real challenge — and opportunity — lies in building robust internal data pipelines that allow organizations to fully leverage ISO20022’s capabilities. For the financial industry, this means moving from “keeping the lights on” to using standardized messaging as a foundation for interoperability and smarter decision-making across global payment rails.
From a financial crime prevention perspective, this is an opportunity to enable more information to flow across the ISO20022 specification tied to the data elements of a customer’s journey. This would provide the ability to leverage that data for all parties to strengthen decision-making when it comes to customer risk, making transparency a significant tool in fighting financial crime.
Digital Assets: Real-Time Payments and Shared Ledgers
Digital assets and real-time payments were front and center, highlighted by Swift’s announcement of a project enabling instant payments with 30 leading financial institutions using a shared ledger. The demand for real-time solutions is only growing, and with it comes the need for institutions to make risk decisions at payment initiation. This evolution is pushing the industry toward 24/7/365 payment environments, where prevention and intervention must take precedence over detection and recovery.
In a real-time payments environment fraud decisions must be fast, understanding risk of both the sender and receiver becomes ever more paramount. At Nasdaq Verafin, our payments fraud solution provides sub-second real-time insights through dedicated APIs, so institutions can address payments fraud where and when it happens, before payments can leave an institution.
Connecting the Dots: Consortium Analytics
What ties these themes together is the growing importance of consortium analytics. By harnessing the collective power of a consortium network, institutions can understand risks associated with both senders and receivers in real time. As the payments landscape accelerates, solutions that harness consortium data and agentic AI will be critical for managing financial crime and enabling secure, instant payments.
Consortium analytics and real-time risk assessment is a key enabler in this new era. By focusing on business enablement and the underlying infrastructure that supports secure, global transactions, institutions will be better prepared to navigate the challenges and opportunities of a rapidly changing financial ecosystem.
Sibos 2025 made it clear that the convergence of AI, ISO20022, and digital assets is not just a technological shift — it’s a call to action for the industry to collaborate, innovate, and build resilience for the future.
About the Author:
MAURICEO CASTANHEIRO
VP – Head, International Payments Fraud, Nasdaq Verafin
Mauriceo Castanheiro (CFE, CAMS) is the Head of International Payments Fraud at Nasdaq Verafin with over two decades of experience combating fraud in the financial sector. In his senior advisory role at Nasdaq Verafin, Mauriceo collaborates with global banks, including Tier 1 institutions, financial industry partners, and key influencers, strengthening Nasdaq Verafin’s reputation as a thought leader and fostering industry-wide cooperation. Having held pivotal positions in fraud management at several of Canada’s largest banks, encompassing roles in business intelligence, operations, analytics, and strategy, Mauriceo offers extensive expertise to Nasdaq Verafin and contributes significantly to the development of innovative solutions for financial crime prevention.
