smartTrade

Insights from the BAFT 2024 Regional Bank Conference

The smartTrade team attended this year’s BAFT Regional Bank Conference held in Chicago. The event caters to bankers from institutions with less than $250 billion in assets. While US banks comprise the bulk of attendees, attendance was open to regional banks wherever they are based and there were participants from around the globe in attendance for networking, discussion and collaboration on FX, trade finance, payments, regulatory and other issues affecting member banks. smartTrade’s Director of Payments, Chris Gibson, participated in a panel discussion on the future of payments alongside Sue-Ellen Speight from StoneX and Steve Douglass of The Clearing House and hosted by Yenner Karto of First National Bank of Pennsylvania. 

Discussion at the conference covered trends in FX, correspondent banking, AI & trade digitization, structured trade finance, nearshoring, operational efficiency, client experience and more. During presentations and discussions, conference participants identified a range of issues challenging their businesses. These included: 

  • Fintech competitors offering superior digital experiences with attractive pricing. 
  • Preserving institutional knowledge in a variety of areas but particularly in operations as experienced team-members retire. 
  • Creating and maintaining supply chains for payments (correspondents & nostro costs) and FX (liquidity providers and currency availability). 
  • Process improvements and efficiency: manual processes, legacy technology, and interoperability. 
  • Keeping pace with technology and managing the complexity and timeline of tech projects.  
  • Managing change across a variety of initiatives such as ISO 20022, instant payments, open banking, and regulatory compliance. 

Set against these challenges are the strengths and strategies of regional banks versus their national bank and fintech competition. Foremost amongst these is the core regional bank value propositions of personalized service, trust, and relationships – all of which do not rely on scale or technology to deliver. As one panelist summarized: ‘our clients pick up the phone to call a name rather than a toll-free number’. Regional banks can also boast of local knowledge and specialization suited to their customer base. Adding to these strengths are several strategies raised by participants: 

  • Partnerships with other providers–both bank and non-bank–to access needed expertise or resources. 
  • Leveraging technology to reduce or limit operational bottlenecks. 
  • Being proactive and managing change. 
  • Staying on mission: providing service and building relationships despite the distractions. 

smartTrade’s Commercial Banking and Payments platform has consistently helped banks worldwide to deliver payments, FX, and cash management capabilities to clients of all types. With robust ISO-20022 compliant payment capture and instruction management, we can help support your ISO journey at every stage, offering a leading FX and payments experience.

Access liquidity and payment execution while presenting clients with a rich menu of FX products that can be tailored to a wide range of users and use cases. CBP is designed to integrate cleanly and quickly with the infrastructure you have to enable the experiences your clients demand.

At smartTrade, we remain committed to understanding and addressing the evolving needs of regional banks in the global financial landscape. Let’s navigate the future of banking together.