OpenText webinar to examine how banks can cut Swift connectivity costs and unlock value from payment data
A Finextra webinar hosted in association with OpenText will examine how banks and corporates can reduce operational complexity and total cost of ownership by moving away from in-house Swift connectivity, while also extracting greater value from payments data.
The session, titled “Beyond connectivity and ISO 20022 compliance: How to reduce TCO and unlock value”, is scheduled for Tuesday, 31 March 2026 at 15:00 BST, 16:00 CEST and 10:00 EDT. Finextra says 167 people have already registered for the online event.
The webinar will focus on the financial and operational pressures associated with maintaining in-house Swift connectivity. According to the event briefing, costs linked to infrastructure maintenance, system upgrades, specialist staff, audits and ongoing compliance are often underestimated by institutions, even though they create sustained pressure on resources and budgets.
One of the key themes of the discussion will be the shift to a Swift service bureau model, in which an external provider manages connectivity. Finextra said this approach can reduce technology overhead, lower internal dependency on specialist resources and improve operational resilience by removing the need for organisations to support connectivity around the clock.
The event will also look at the benefits of consolidating Swift and non-Swift payment flows with a single provider. Finextra said this can help institutions break down long-standing data silos across systems and regions, improve end-to-end visibility and enable consistent data enrichment across different payment types.
As ISO 20022 adoption becomes more established, the webinar will explore where the most immediate benefits are emerging. According to the source material, richer structured data is improving automation, reducing exceptions and supporting stronger reconciliation, screening and investigations processes. Clearer remittance information is also being highlighted as a factor that can improve transparency and speed up issue resolution, which in turn can support customer experience across payment channels.
Finextra said the combination of a service bureau model, centralised payment data and ISO 20022 can help financial institutions demonstrate measurable return on investment. Metrics cited in the event briefing include improved straight-through processing, fewer manual tasks, shorter investigation cycles, lower operational risk and stronger resilience.
The event will feature speakers from OpenText, Wells Fargo and CGI. Alfredo Lanzillotta, Principal Solutions Consultant at OpenText, Carmen Podgurschi, Global Payments Leader at Wells Fargo, and Sean Devaney, Vice President, Strategy for Banking and Financial Markets at CGI, are listed as speakers. Jane Cooper, Researcher at Finextra, will moderate the session.
Industry Analysis
The webinar reflects a broader shift in the payments industry toward consolidation, automation and data-driven operations. For banks and corporates, the message is that compliance programmes such as ISO 20022 are no longer being viewed only as regulatory or technical requirements, but as an opportunity to improve efficiency and business insight.
By moving connectivity management to an external provider and centralising payment data, institutions may be able to reduce operating costs while gaining better visibility across payment flows. The emphasis on straight-through processing, reconciliation accuracy and faster investigations also suggests that value is increasingly being measured in operational outcomes rather than infrastructure ownership alone.
