BAFT Releases White Paper on Managing Liquidity, Operational, and Financial Crimes Risks in Instant Payments

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WASHINGTON, D.C. (November 5, 2025) – BAFT, the leading global industry association for international transaction banking, has released a new white paper titled “Liquidity, Operational, and Financial Crimes Risks in Instant Payments.” As instant payment systems gain momentum worldwide, this timely publication addresses the evolving risk landscape tied to the speed, irrevocability, and complexity of these transactions. 

The white paper outlines critical considerations for financial institutions, including the need for enhanced real-time monitoring, proactive liquidity management, and tailored financial crime controls. It provides actionable insights for banks to develop a risk-based approach, ensuring safe and resilient instant payment services while maintaining innovation and customer confidence. 
 
“Instant payments are reshaping the global payments ecosystem, but with their benefits come heightened risks,” said Deepa Sinha, SVP for Payments and Financial Crimes at BAFT. “This white paper equips institutions with the tools and strategies necessary to mitigate these risks and operate responsibly in the new real-time environment.”

To access the full white paper, visit www.baft.org 

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About BAFT
BAFT is the leading global industry association for international transaction banking. Bringing together financial institutions, service providers, and the regulatory community, BAFT provides thought leadership, advocacy, education, and a platform for collaboration to promote sound financial practices that foster innovation, efficiency, and commercial growth. The association engages in a broad range of issues affecting transaction banking, including trade finance, payments, and compliance, helping members navigate a rapidly evolving global landscape. For more information about BAFT, visit baft.org, or follow BAFT on X (Formally Twitter), LinkedIn, and YouTube.

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To explore how far the industry has come since the G20 Roadmap for Cross Border Payments was endorsed in 2020, and how much more remains to be done, Trade Treasury Payments (TTP) spoke with Deepa Sinha, Senior Vice President for Payments and Financial Crimes at BAFT, and Shriyanka Hore, Global Head of Industry Engagement at Swift.

Via Trade Treasury Payments by Deepa Sinha

Amid four packed days at Sibos 2025 in Frankfurt, experts from across the transaction banking space came together to discuss (among many other topics from a long agenda) how to make cross-border payments better. Today, trillions of dollars move across borders each day and global commerce has become more digital than ever, which means that implementation is becoming a central priority.

In the final hours of the conference, Trade Treasury Payments (TTP) made time to sit down with Deepa Sinha, Senior Vice President for Payments and Financial Crimes at BAFT, and Shriyanka Hore, Global Head of Industry Engagement at Swift, to discuss how far the industry has come and how far it still has to go.

The G20 roadmap for cross-border payments, endorsed in 2020, set a collective goal of making international payments faster, cheaper, more transparent, and more accessible by 2027. Even in 2025, fragmented regulations and differing market practices mean that a cross-border payment can look very different depending on where it starts and ends.

Read the article and listen to the full episode here.

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Via Trade Finance Global by Doga Usanmaz

  • Geopolitical tensions and shifting trade corridors are requiring banks to adapt to political risks and regional economic changes.
  • Europe’s focus on financial sovereignty is driving strategic investment into sectors like energy and defense.
  • Regarding digitalisation, challenges remain in balancing technological innovation with social impacts, particularly in developing regions

Rerouted trade corridors, regional fragmentation, a currency arms race… these are no longer distant possibilities. They are active geopolitical and macroeconomic forces, reshaping transactional banking. 

At this year’s BAFT Global Council’s Forum in Frankfurt, Germany, a panel of senior leaders from prominent global and regional banks explored how shifting political tensions and economic dynamics are creating deep uncertainty for the industry, and how banks are adapting their strategies, infrastructure, and client relations in response.

The panel, moderated by Nick Smit, head of financial institutions at ING Bank and chair of BAFT’s board, found that transactional banks are being rewired to confront political risk, digitisation, and technological disruption. The panel provided a region-by-region exploration of the subject, and some interesting parallels came up.

Read the full article here.

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Via Global Trade Review by Jenny Messenger

The demise of the UN-backed Net Zero Banking Alliance (NZBA) has highlighted how difficult it is to create single standards for the global financial sector, the Bankers Association for Finance and Trade (Baft) has said.

The NZBA officially shut down earlier this month after members voted to end the alliance and instead use its guidance as a framework for setting net-zero targets.

The decision, which comes after a rocky year for the organisation in which several major banks exited, illustrates the challenges of aligning multiple banks across the globe, says Baft.

“What the disbanding of NZBA shows is the difficulty of establishing single standards that are flexible enough to accommodate the many bank operating models and regional variances on sustainability goals,” says Andy Price, vice-president, international policy, and sustainability and ESG lead at Baft.

Read the full article here.

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Via Trade Treasury Payments by Deepesh Patel

The shift to ISO 20022 marks one of the most significant changes in global financial infrastructure in decades. ISO 20022 is a universal messaging standard that uses structured, machine-readable XML data to describe financial transactions. It replaces SWIFT’s legacy MT (Message Type) format, which has been in use for more than 40 years and relies on unstructured text fields with limited capacity for automation and analytics.

SWIFT introduced ISO 20022 for cross-border payments and reporting (CBPR+) on 20 March 2023, launching a three-year coexistence period in which both MT and ISO 20022 (MX) messages could be exchanged. This period ends on 22 November 2025, when SWIFT will retire MT messages in Categories 1, 2, and 9 in bank-to-bank communication. After that date, all cross-border payments, bank-to-bank transfers, and cash-management messages must be sent and received in ISO 20022 format.

These categories include common flows such as MT103 (customer credit transfer) and MT202 (bank transfer), which are being replaced by pacs.008 and pacs.009, as well as MT940 statements, now superseded by camt.053.

For banks, corporates, and treasurers, the migration enables richer, more consistent data for reconciliation, sanctions screening, and analytics. For the wider trade, treasury, and payments (TTP) ecosystem, ISO 20022 creates opportunities to enhance supply-chain visibility, improve straight-through processing, and align cross-border and domestic systems under a single standard.

BAFT’s ISO 20022 Migration Lessons Learned paper, drawing on insights from leading global banks, outlines key takeaways from this transformation. The following ten lessons summarise what has worked, where challenges remain, and how institutions can prepare for the final phase.

Read full article here.

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BAFT is featured in two articles in Trade Finance Global’s latest issue. To read the full articles, click here.

“BAFT Strategic Independence in an era of geopolitical complexity“

After more than two decades under the American Bankers Association (ABA) umbrella, the Bankers’ Association for Finance and Trade (BAFT) is charting a new course as an independent organisation. The
separation, effective September 2025, will be in response to an increasingly fragmented global financial
landscape.

Try to conceptualise the financial landscape of 1921. In the direct aftermath of the First World War, many European economies were burdened by war debts and reparations, particularly Germany under the Treaty of Versailles; the US emerged as the world’s leading creditor nation, shifting the financial centre of gravity from London to New York; global trade and investment were disrupted; and the gold standard, though still influential, was under strain as countries struggled to stabilise their currencies.

Also in 1921, the Bankers’ Association or Finance and Trade (BAFT) was established, uniting 10 banks in
midwestern US to expedite business transactions of their international trade customers….

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“5 takeaways from the BAFT Global Annual Meeting 2025: The tug-of-war between localisation and collaboration”

Navigating the trade finance landscape, with constant dodgeballs in the form of geopolitical tensions,
regulatory requirements, and threatening technology, requires considerable agility. But this year’s BAFT Global Annual Meeting, in Washington, DC, revealed the considerable opportunity in times of turbulence.

Navigating the trade finance landscape, with constant dodgeballs in the form of geopolitical tensions, regulatory requirements, and threatening technology, requires considerable agility. But this year’s BAFT Global Annual Meeting, in Washington, DC, revealed the considerable opportunity in times of turbulence…