My full conversation with Tom Alaerts, who spent over 27 years at SWIFT working on the standards the global payment system runs on.😶‍🌫️ Every technical difficulty has been cut out. What is left in this video below is the complete conversation from start to finish, for anyone who wants to watch the entirety of the Spaces and catch every massive piece of confirmation in full. 🎙️ During this conversation, Tom addressed several popular topics in the regulated financial space. 🗣️ Here are a few of the major takeaways from this insightful conversation: 0:09:51 — SWIFT is not going anywhere. ✅ Tom explains that SWIFT's position is backed by decades of trust, security, and governance that the global banking system already relies on, and any new network has to work with that reality instead of pretending it can be replaced overnight. 0:31:25 — ISO 20022 and digital assets have a strong relationship. ✅ Tom walks through how the ISO standards world and digital assets are already connected, and why that connection is structural, built into how the standards themselves were designed, not a recent experiment. 0:32:01 — ISO-compliant fintechs and digital currency networks have a higher likelihood of integration into central bank payment systems and SWIFT. ✅ Tom confirms that because they already speak the same language those systems are being built on, they become better candidates to partner with banks. 0:54:44 — SWIFT and ISO 20022 are not just messaging. ✅ Tom makes clear that the standard reaches far beyond moving messages from one bank to another. It extends into how value, data, and settlement connect across the entire system. That level of firsthand insight is almost never shared this openly in public, which is exactly what makes this conversation so important. FULL CONVERSATION TIMESTAMPS 0:00 — SMQKE's welcome 0:03:31 — Tom's introduction 0:08:14 — SWIFT's role and staying power 0:35:34 — Early blockchain discussions at SWIFT 0:40:46 — ISO 20022 transition 1:01:44 — Compatibility: which networks get adopted 1:13:07 — pacs.crypto and agentic finance 1:30:03 — The next 12 months: the snowball 1:34:22 — Final remarks Enjoy🍿