November 2025 is the deadline for completing the migration of interbank payments messages from the legacy MT format to MX messages under the ISO 20022 standard. While this change is often viewed as a technical exercise, it enables richer structured data that can transform how banks and corporates manage payments. Speaking at Sibos Frankfurt 2025, Sunday Domingo, global head of digital channels solutions at Standard Chartered, emphasised that banks must go beyond compliance and help corporates adopt the new standard to unlock its benefits. Her remarks also reflected how Standard Chartered is partnering with technology providers and experimenting with artificial intelligence (AI) to create more responsive platforms. Moving beyond ISO 20022 compliance Domingo stressed that migrating bank-to-bank flows under ISO 20022 is “not enough” if corporates do not also adopt structured, rich data. Standard Chartered is already 76% migrated and confident of meeting the November 2025 deadline, but is “looking ahead” to help clients transition. Without client adoption, she warned, banks cannot deliver the data-driven insights that treasurers need to forecast cash flow, detect outliers and automate reconciliation. This theme — standards are only as powerful as their adoption — resonated across conference sessions. Omni-channel strategy and partnerships Clients want to connect through multiple channels. “There’s no one-size-fits-all,” Domingo said, noting that while many corporates use application programming interfaces (APIs), others still rely on host-to-host connections or SWIFT for Corporates. Standard Chartered partners with enterprise resource planning (ERP) and treasury management system (TMS) providers such as SAP and Kyriba to plug its services and data into the platforms corporates already use. This reflects a wider industry shift towards embedded finance, where banks extend their reach through third-party ecosystems rather than forcing corporates onto proprietary portals. Embedding transaction services into platforms Domingo explained that Standard Chartered offers a suite of APIs enabling third-party platforms to connect directly to its transaction banking services. For example, it was one of the first banks to link to SAP’s multibank connectivity solution. This ecosystem approach allows capabilities to be “leveraged across the ecosystem” and creates more channels for banks to serve customers. As corporate treasurers demand seamless user experiences, embedded banking is becoming a prerequisite rather than an option. Building an AI-ready data foundation As more clients transact digitally, Standard Chartered can gather more data on their behaviour. Domingo said this data will underpin analytics and emerging forms of AI, such as retrieval-augmented generation and new model protocols. The bank has launched an internal “AI Factory” to give teams access to large language models while experimenting with guardrails to mitigate risks like “hallucinations”. Without a well-governed data foundation, she cautioned, “it’s not enough that you’re building an AI solution.” Educating corporates to avoid competitive disadvantage Domingo emphasised that in emerging markets, where labour costs are low and manual processes persist, banks must educate corporates on the benefits of automation and ISO 20022 adoption. Without investing, she warned, “it could become a competitive disadvantage” as more businesses become AI-enabled. Her comments underscore a central theme of Sibos Frankfurt 2025: technology standards and platforms are only as effective as the participation and education that support them.
