Sibos 2011: Opening Day in Toronto

 19 Sept 2011

Sibos 2011 is set to kick off today in Toronto, Canada. This year SWIFT's user conference has attracted more than 7,000 delegates, including 200 exhibitors and speakers. It has come a long way from its first conference of 800 attendees in 1980 in Copenhagen.

This year the Sibos conference programme is built around four main topics:

1. Regulation re-visited.
2. Technology.
3. Changing landscape, new expectations.
4. Global and local perspectives.

Despite the sigh of relief in Amsterdam last year, the global economic woes have not yet been resolved. The crisis of confidence in the eurozone, and also the US, are a worry for many participants in Toronto, even though the ‘Big Issue’ debates that dominate the main plenaries seem to indicate that the crisis is well and truly over with titles such as ‘The Post-crisis Financial Transaction Infrastructure’ and ‘Back to Business: Where’s the Growth in 2012 and Beyond?’ The discussions on the conference floor may be slightly more cautious in outlook.

Corporate Forum 2011

For the fourth year running, the conference offers a stream dedicated to corporates. This year the stream is entitled ‘Collaborating for Success - Advancing Critical Dialogue Between Corporates and Banks’ and aims to deliver insight into emerging areas that affect companies and how they manage their money in an increasingly changing world. The main sessions will covers topics such as electronic invoicing (e-invoicing), SWIFT for Corporates, Basel III and its impact on trade finance, mitigating risk of and financing open account transactions, payment hubs, SEPA challenges and the role of collaboration in corporate banking.
Although the numbers are down on last year, there are many excellent speakers from the corporate world including:

• Anita Prasad, general manager, treasury capital management, Microsoft - view the gtnews video interview with Prasad from Sibos 2010 in Amsterdam.
• John Colleemallay, director, group treasury and financing, Dassault Systèmes.
• Sang Hee Pang, general manager, export information team, global business division, Hyundai.
• Debra Hinds, global cash management, director, Bombardier.
• Brooke Tilton, director, treasury operations, Viacom.
• Raul Rivas, manager, finance operations and projects NAFTA, Daimler North America.

 

gtnews at Sibos

gtnews and sister publication bobsguide have a stand this year - PS06 - so if you are at the conference, please drop by to say hello.

Otherwise, you can follow our activity through my daily blog and also a guest blog from financial supply chain (FSC) contributing editor, Enrico Camerinelli. Also, we will be conducting in-depth video interviews with industry experts to give you an inside track as to what are the big debates at the conference. Interviewees include:

• Alice Eastman, senior vice president of cash management and payment services, Scotiabank.
• Paul Simpson, head of global treasury solutions, Bank of America Merrill Lynch (BofA Merrill).
• Nanda Kumar, president and chief executive officer (CEO), SunTec.
• Werner Steinmueller, managing director, head of global transaction banking (GTB), Deutsche Bank.
• Pierre Fersztand, global head of cash management, BNP Paribas.
• Richard Dallas, transactional banking director, Lloyds Bank Corporate Markets.
• Gerard Hartsink, European Payments Council (EPC) chair.
• John Laurens, head of global payments and cash management, Asia-Pacific, HSBC - view the gtnews video with Laurens from Sibos 2009 in Hong Kong.
• Simon Newstead, head of financial institution (FI) market and business strategy, global transaction services (GTS), RBS - view the gtnews video with Newstead from Sibos 2010 in Amsterdam.
• Donna Alexander, BAFT-IFSA CEO.
• Ashutosh Kumar, global head of cash and trade products, Standard Chartered Bank.

We will also be tweeting from the event - please follow our Twitter feed.

Today the gtnews and bobsguide teams took advantage of our surroundings and went to a Blue Jays and New York Yankees game at Rogers Centre - Blue Jays won 3-0. Hail the sole standing Canadian major league baseball team.

Tieto have set the tone of the evenings to come with a soiree this evening up the CN Tower. The food was amazing, and the view even more so.

First published on www.gtnews.com