In this blog, Jamie Packham, shares his own experiences deploying generative artificial intelligence (AI) models and explores the potential for AI to help accelerate banks’ migration to the ISO 20022 messaging standard….

It is critical for financial institutions to have an efficient Reconciliation and Investigation (R&I) capability to minimise financial risk by identifying potential payment errors, discrepancies, or irregularities promptly and fixing them early…

A recent independent survey conducted by Celent found that 73% of corporate banks have reported clear revenue benefits from investment in advanced data analytics. Looking ahead, analytics, intelligent automation, and artificial intelligence…

Where is your bank on the order management (or pre-processing, or initiation management – whichever you prefer) maturity scale? Are you running your order management on legacy technology as a routing/integration layer…

This case study is about a South Africa-headquartered pan-Africa bank that engaged Icon to determine the bank’s overall capability to deliver their target architecture and make prioritised recommendations for transforming the bank’s…

This Tier 1 bank was looking for a payments infrastructure that would allow them greater flexibility, speed and innovation. The bank recognised Icon’s proven track record in delivering payments transformation strategies for…

Icon Solutions was founded in 2009 with the desire to be different and simplify banking transformation, using technological expertise and deep experience to fight complexity, promote transparency and put the needs of…

With the Payments IT landscape frequently changing due to regulations, customer needs, and innovations, Financial Institutions (FIs) face challenges of high cost, slow pace of change, operational complexities, and a constant struggle…

By all measures, Sibos 2023 in Toronto was a great success. The event brought together more than 9,000 attendees to discuss this edition’s theme – ‘Collaborative finance in a fragmented world’. Rich…

When this Tier 1 UK bank was facing a strict industry timeline for compliance with ISO20022 messaging standards, Icon helped the bank in a number of ways. One was that we proposed…

Traditional banking has evolved over centuries into what we have today: digitalized products and services that keep the worldwide economic cogs turning. In pursuit of automation and digitalization banks have accrued sizeable…

As banks continue to grapple with the account-based payments processing model amid seemingly interminable margin pressures, the wider commercial implications of software developer capacity limitations are coming into much sharper focus. In…

The traditional payments processing model for account-based payments is under unprecedented strain amid diminishing profit margins, increasing competition from fintechs, and rising costs. These challenges are only set to compound in a…

With 2023 emerging as the year of choice for banks when it comes to adopting new strategies and technologies to take control of their payments processing capabilities, many now find themselves at…

Just over a year ago, my colleagues and I offered a few predictions about developments and trends in global payments and banking, intended to help financial institutions shape their strategy for the…

Compared to other sectors, the financial industry has been slow to move to the cloud – and with good reason. Regulatory compliance and data privacy issues alone make banks hesitant to give…

The UK is due to upgrade its instant payments platform by mid-2025. The New Payments Architecture (NPA) aims to deliver multiple benefits, including ease of access and enhanced data carrying capabilities. In…

It’s a transformative time for the payments industry. The development of innovative payments methods and technology has changed marketplace dynamics, pushing new players into the spotlight and shifting the focus of payments…

A sea-change is coming to UK payments. In 2016-17, the UK’s industry-wide Payments Strategy Forum created the New Payments Architecture (NPA) initiative. The initiative seeks to create a state-of-the-art, real-time payments infrastructure…

As we celebrate the eighth International Day for Women and Girls in Science on Saturday 11th February 2023, we know that, as technology specialists, our industry needs to do so much more….

Research indicates that payments transformation isn’t optional—it’s imperative for survival. Yet modernising payments infrastructure can be a costly undertaking. Toine van Beusekom, Strategy Director at Icon Solutions, discusses how Tier 2 and…

This Tier 1 UK bank needed to accelerate change to its payments platforms to be more competitive and deliver value sooner. Read what Icon Solutions did to help the bank transition to…

By all accounts, 2022 was difficult for just about everyone. Continuing economic fallout from the pandemic, geopolitical upheaval, soaring inflation, rising energy costs and a host of other pressures all underscored the…

It’s no secret that the account-to-account payments processing model remains under strain. Despite payment services being ‘mission critical’, many Tier 1 banks continue to see these payment operations as a ‘cost centre’….

Innovation is enabling new types of payments and creating a truly dynamic ecosystem. Yet in order to create a market where new schemes like Account-to-Account payments can compete, regulation must play a…

Icon Solutions was engaged by the bank to assist them with evolving their current payments technology estate. The bank needed to enhance and refine their current payments technology estate in order to…

Icon Solutions was engaged by the bank to propose an enhanced payments proposition for small and medium business customers and to recommend the best technical approach for deployment. The project was co-sponsored…

The bank’s reaction to major changes in the global Payments industry was a new Payments Platform Reference Architecture. Icon Solutions was asked to assess both current and target states, and overall delivery…

Our client is a Tier 1 bank with £750+ billion of assets and 19 million customers across UK and Ireland. Icon had proven experience at the bank from previous engagements, and were…

Our client wanted their in-house payments platform to be used for processing all types of payments and needed to migrate legacy systems to the platform. As part of this programme, they needed…

Icon Solutions has announced that its payments platform solution – IPF – has been selected by a major Swiss bank as the core of its payments transformation programme that includes instant schemes,…

Our client, a major Swiss bank operating in a number of countries across the globe, selected Icon Solutions to assist them on their payments transformation journey and chose Icon’s payments platform, IPF,…

Our client needed to transform their current payments architecture to ensure scalability and resilience, moving to an event-driven architecture approach. Faced with this significant strategic challenge, the bank needed a trusted third…

Icon Solutions was engaged by the wholesale banking division, co-sponsored by the Global CIO and the Chief Architect for Payments, Liquidity and Cash Management. In commissioning Icon, the Wholesale division’s business and…

Market forces are driving banking innovations which promise significant downstream benefits for corporates. Banks are facing intense competition, with 8% of corporates already reporting that they are using non-bank specialists for credit…

The number of banks identifying payments data monetisation as a key strategic priority has doubled in the past two years. The growth of real-time payments (RTP), ISO 20022 migration and open banking…

Icon recognised for outstanding contribution to charitable causes 12 July 2021 – Icon Solutions, the specialist provider of world-class payment solutions and technology consultancy services for banks and other financial services organisations,…

At a recent payments forum hosted by the Bank of Finland, ECB board member Fabio Panetta signalled commercial banks must make instant payments ‘cheap and easy to use’. While on the operational…

How many people have heard of Kathleen Booth or Margaret Hamilton? Chances are not many. But why not? These two women achieved two significant firsts. Kathleen invented the first assembly language and Margaret,…

In the fourth part of our series exploring the motivations, architecture and principles driving the development of IPF, Tom Beadman, Principal Engineer at Icon Solutions, discusses the benefits of using Domain-Specific Languages…

As competition in payments has increased, data has long been touted as the cure-all for incumbent banks. If banks could charge a transaction fee for every time they are told that ‘data…

Remaining competitive in payments is the key to future relevance and profitability for incumbent banks. But with incumbents now competing on multiple fronts against various players, how can they stay ahead of…

13 April 2021 – Icon Solutions, the specialist provider of world-class payment solutions and technology consultancy services for banks and other financial services organisations, has today announced the appointment of Simon Barrows…

For several decades, incumbent banks have held a comfortable leadership position in payments. But the rapid growth of digital payments has signalled opportunity for new market entrants to attack this status quo….

In July 2020, a group of sixteen major European banks from five Euro countries announced the launch of the European Payments Initiative (EPI) with the aim of creating a unified payment solution…

For decades, incumbent banks have held a leadership position in the payments business and enjoyed high fees, healthy margins and limited competition. But as the payments ecosystem expands, these incumbents find themselves competing…

Setting the scene In the third part of our series exploring the motivations, architecture and principles driving the development of IPF, Pat Altaie, Senior Consultant, discusses the benefits of using interoperable programming…

11th January 2021 –  Icon Solutions, the specialist provider of world-class payment solutions and consultancy services, has today announced the appointment of Alastair Brown to its Board of Directors. Alastair is the…

It has been said that prediction is very difficult, especially if it’s about the future. The unprecedented events of 2020 demonstrated quite how difficult it can be. The monumental uplifts in digital…

In the second part of our series exploring the motivations, architecture and principles driving the development of IPF, Sirin Sevinc, Senior Solution Architect, explains the roles CQRS and Event Sourcing play in…

24th November 2020 – Icon Solutions, the leading provider of technology solutions and real-time payments expertise, has been featured in Financial IT’s winter magazine ‘Innovations in FinTech‘ (page 28). Financial IT interviewed…

Standardisation, regulation and technological innovation means payments are well on the way to becoming instant, invisible and free. This is good news for everybody. Well, not quite everybody. Banks are now faced…

Over the past 20+ years, I have been deeply involved in designing, building and delivering systems in a few different sectors across a multitude of technologies and methodologies, varying team sizes and…

29th October 2020 –  Icon Solutions, the specialist provider of world-class payment solutions and consultancy services, today announced a strategic investment from J.P. Morgan. Icon Solutions is a leading global provider of…

As part of Icon Solutions’ thought leadership in the world of payments, our latest webinar, ‘Busting the Myths of Payments Transformation’, delved into the noise and misnomers in the payments transformation space and…

03 September 2020 – Icon Solutions, the specialist provider of payment solutions and consultancy services, has been selected by a Tier One Australian Bank to review and industrialise its payments transformation strategy….

What’s next for banks in this strange new world we find ourselves in? Forget the forecasts and predictions, we are in uncharted territory and the honest answer is that no one truly…

Discover how Icon Solutions helped this Belgian Bank to offer instant payments to their customers as well as drive its migration to public Cloud, using IPF.

‘Payments transformation’ has emerged as perhaps the single biggest opportunity for banks. But getting payments transformation right is no easy task. With only 9% of banks nearing completion in their transformation efforts,…

Payments transformation has emerged as perhaps both the single biggest opportunity, and challenge, for banks. Given the proven link between successful payments transformation and payments profitability the potential rewards are huge. But…

In the U.S. and across the globe, financial institutions are wrestling with evolving consumer expectations, razor-thin margins and increased competition. Yet, significant opportunities are there for those who have built a foundation…

Discover how Icon Solutions enabled BNP Paribas to meet their first challenge on the transformation journey through the fast track deployment of IPF for instant payments, and how the impact of our consultancy work has set…

Find out how Icon helped a leading UK financial institution with a savings and mortgage customer base of over 15 million facing challenges around the performance and resiliency of their payments systems.

Icon Solutions is delighted to be speaking alongside HSBC and Nordea in an exclusive InstaPay webinar, ‘The Payments Transformation Race – who’s winning?’, where we will be sharing insights from our recent…

London, 19th November 2019 – Icon Solutions, the leading provider of technology solutions and payments expertise, today revealed that only 9% of the world’s top tier banks are effectively monetising payments data….

The new report “The Payments Transformation Race: Criteria for Success” from Aite and Icon Solutions identified that banks that have a clear and robust payments transformation plan are more profitable than their…

In a recent podcast hosted by InstaPay at this year’s Sibos, Icon’s Aniruddha Maheshwari, Payments Consultant sits down with InstaPay Editor, Lauren Jones. In this podcast they discuss some of the payments…

A week has passed since the release of our commissioned research report ‘The Payments Transformation Race: Criteria for Success’ written by Aite Group, and it has sparked interesting debate within the industry….

Report reveals that slow payment transformation risks shrinking margins further London, 17th September 2019 – Icon Solutions, the leading provider of technology solutions and payments expertise, today launches a new report “The Payments…

London, 31st July 2019 – Icon Solutions, the leading provider of technology solutions and payments expertise, is delighted to announce it will be exhibiting at this year’s Sibos event, “Thriving in a hyper-connected world”,…

Icon Solutions, a leading Fintech provider of payment and technology solutions, has commissioned Aite, an independent research and advisory firm, to explore the payments transformation progress of global banks. The research provides…

Icon Solutions, a leading Fintech provider of payment and technology solutions, has commissioned Aite, an independent research and advisory firm, to explore the payments transformation progress of global banks. ‘Payment transformation’ is…