Doug Shulman: Interconnectedness Is Driving the Future of Money

Doug Shulman, Global Head of Client Service Delivery at BNY Mellon, participated in the Innotribe 'Future of Money' plenary session on Monday, September 26 at Sibos in Geneva. The panelists focused on the emerging 'Internet of Everything,' where physical objects connect to the internet and are able to exchange data between each other, such as smart appliances that connect to the electrical grid to vary how much power they draw, or smart supply systems that place orders when stocks run low.

Commenting on the implications for the global payments system, Shulman says: 'for financial institutions, interconnectedness is a world where the integration of technology, the seamless flow of data, and the management and analysis of data are critical to their long-term viability and success. BNY Mellon stands in the center of the financial market ecosystem. We have responsibility for the safekeeping of 29 trillion dollars of assets. We see four essential components for any interconnected financial system to work: a network effect of critical mass and broad adoption; agreements on standards for data elements, interfaces and protocols; security; and trust. The world's financial system, and the means to exchange value, must reassure people that their money is safe.'

'That's why banks will continue to stay at the heart of the payments infrastructure,' Shulman adds. 'We are collaborating with Fintechs and other market participants to ensure we have innovation that accelerates payments clearing and settlement, provides even more transparency, and reduces the cost of transactions. But at the same time that innovation accelerates these processes, it has to work at the kinds of scale in which we at BNY Mellon provide services.'

Shulman also reflects on the technologies and solutions needed in an interconnected world: 'To improve payments, banks have to take on a lot of internal transformation, too. At BNY Mellon, we are driving towards greater speed and transparency through initiatives such as US real-time payments with The Clearing House, Swift gpi, and clearXchange for tokenized payments. We are also working on a multi-year initiative to develop our global payments infrastructure, which features an open architecture and custom-built modules covering the key phases of payment processing. It provides a robust, centralized global operating model for consistent service levels and processing that can be settled via multiple payment channels across multiple regions in any branch and any supported global currency.'

Shulman concludes: 'We view ourselves as a technology and services company that has a balance sheet that can help our customers do business. We're making tremendous investments in technology and our digital platform NEXEN which is helping improve client experience and allowing customers to interact with us using multiple channels. We are also making significant effort to ensure we're a good partner with all our clients in helping them through their own transformation journeys. In the future, both money and data are going to be shared and exchanged and managed in fundamentally different ways. We use technology to make dealing with us even easier, more friction-free, more seamless, so that we can be an even better partner to our clients, living up to the legacy of our founder Alexander Hamilton for another 232 years.'