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At the forefront of the increasingly complex web of payment options, BNY, under Jennifer Barker's guidance, has employed artificial intelligence, blockchain and the latest in conventional technology to ease institutional clients' burdens.
"What gets me out of bed every day is helping solve their problems, even those they may not know about yet, because we can see it in the data," said Barker, the global head of treasury services and depositary receipts, in an interview.
Those data-driven insights stem from the bank processing $2.5 trillion in payments daily and, as the top global depositary, providing custody for upwards of $500 billion of assets. It identifies opportunities based on a client's own data to address issues such as maximizing liquidity income or minimizing foreign-exchange costs. BNY's Client Insights platform launched two years ago under Barker's watch.
The Bank's 160 AI-enabled solutions currently in production enable functions including predictive analytics, automation, anomaly detection, payment validation and code remediation.
"What I found particularly effective is that she combines that openness to new ideas with a very practical focus on outcomes," said Tsutomu Yamamoto, managing director of the World Bank's Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency since December, after heading Mizuho Bank's global transaction unit.
Yamamoto worked closely with Barker to expand Mizuho's trade network in late 2024 through BNY's recently launched Trade Network Access Service. It provides access to BNY's extensive global correspondent banking network to facilitate letters of credit and other ways of moving money between countries.
"It's a practical innovation that addresses real constraints in cross-border trade finance," he said.
Barker moved to BNY in May 2022 and has led its payments and trade and depositary receipts division through a period of major accomplishments. It was the first bank last year to complete the RTP instant-payment network's new maximum $10 million payment, up from $1 million. The year before, it partnered with the Commonwealth Bank of Australia to enable real-time, 24/7 cross-border payments from the U.S. in less than one minute, and, Barker said, BNY has a "very large roadmap" for similar partnerships.
Companies face an increasingly complex web of payment options, so BNY has built a payment modernization engine that is completing its final phase this year.
"We've removed that complexity for our clients by putting a smart router upfront to facilitate those payment decisions," Barker said.
Barker noted the bank's recent blockchain initiatives enabling tokenization of several asset classes including deposits and money markets, as well as the creation and use of stablecoins, from issuance through ongoing operations. Digital assets and traditional payment rails are likely to co-exist for years, she added, "So we're making sure those systems can work together and give clients optionality."
