When money knows no borders, security sets the limit

Over the past two decades, the global financial ecosystem has undergone an unprecedented transformation. Today, transferring money from one country to another is almost as easy as sending a WhatsApp message. From paying for an online purchase to making an international bank transfer, bank payments are part of our daily lives and, at the same time, support the global economy.

This evolution has become even more evident in recent years, both due to the need to establish regulatory guidelines, mainly by central banks, and due to the constant search for improvements in messaging systems, with the aim of achieving greater efficiency and security while reducing costs.

Today, every second, millions of transfers cross borders in a network connecting banks, fintech companies, clearing houses and payment systems across all continents. From an online purchase in Tokyo to a corporate transfer between New York and Madrid, payments are now faster, more accessible and more interdependent than ever before. This globalisation, promoted by standards such as ISO 20022, networks such as SWIFT and the introduction of new instant payment methods such as Bizum, offers enormous opportunities for efficiency and growth, as well as benefits for users, but it also poses unprecedented challenges and entails new risks.

This global reach and the large number of technologies that characterise the modern payment system have also created an exponentially larger attack surface for cybercriminals. Every connection point, every message, every integration API, and every mobile device used to authorise a transaction represents a potential gateway for fraudulent activity.

Ensuring the security of the integration solutions that enable all this interconnectivity has become a strategic imperative, highlighting the need to strengthen it at all levels. Protecting a payment involves taking care of every detail: from encrypting messages travelling over networks to complying with international standards that prevent fraud or money laundering. It also requires well-designed internal processes, constant monitoring and, equally important, a culture of prevention among users themselves.

We are therefore faced with security levels in channels, infrastructure and communications. In the case of banking messaging, we have, for example, the SWIFT network, with its InterAct channels (for message exchange) and FileAct (file-oriented communication), which, thanks to the use of signatures and certificates (RMA), together with Non-Repudiation or Delivery Notification features, make it possible to certify who sent what, to whom and when, making security one of the fundamental pillars of the SWIFT network and banking intercommunication.

Just as we must ensure the security of payments sent to our correspondents or market infrastructures, we must also rely on reliable solutions for exchanging information between our applications or within our company. In this area, tools such as IBM Direct Connect stand out, not only allowing us to manage large volumes of data – useful, for example, for processing large batches of payments or report files for corporate clients – but also offering unparalleled security in the exchange of information. It is also normal for companies or financial institutions to need to process and transform the information or payments they receive through one channel before redirecting them to another; therefore, taking care of the data, transforming it in a secure environment and validating it are fundamental steps in this whole process. This is where solutions such as IBM MFT, with its managed file exchange platform that enables secure, automated and reliable data transfer, provide the necessary security and guarantees.

On the other hand, the spread of instant payments has brought with it an ecosystem that is increasingly dependent on open APIs, promoted by European regulations such as PSD2 and, with PSD3 and its open finance on the horizon. Solutions such as Bizum or Wero exemplify the enormous progress in real-time payments that we make every day, but at the same time require highly resilient security architectures that protect our data and operations. In this case, solutions such as IBM webMethods API Management, which make API management transparent, simple and secure, can offer us great added value.

In summary, in a world where payments are instantaneous and borderless, security is not an extra: it is the heart of a system whose success depends on collaboration between technology, regulations and people to stay one step ahead of cybercriminals.