Author - Hassan Mahfouzi

Fintech & The New Challengers: The Attack on Traditional Bank Fees

Hassan Mahfouzi2025-11-04T12:04:21+00:00 Executive SummaryFor decades, international payments were the exclusive and highly profitable domain of traditional banks, protected by complex systems and opaque fee structures. This old-world model is now under a direct and sustained assault from a new generation of fintech challengers. Companies like Wise (formerly...

The New Arms Race: How AI and ML are Revolutionizing Financial Crime Compliance

Hassan Mahfouzi2025-11-04T12:02:12+00:00 Executive SummaryInternational banks are trapped in an escalating war against financial crime, and they have been losing. For decades, their primary defense has been a "rules-based" approach—static, simplistic, and easy for criminals to evade. This has resulted in staggering operational costs, a customer-frustrating 95%+ "false...

SWIFT gpi: How Real-Time Tracking is Ending the “Black Box” of Payments

Hassan Mahfouzi2025-11-04T11:16:36+00:00 Executive SummaryFor decades, the single greatest frustration with international payments—for both corporates and individuals—has been the "black box." A payment was sent, and it would disappear into the global financial system for days, with no visibility into its status, location, or the fees being deducted...

ISO 20022 vs. Legacy Systems: A CTO’s Guide to Translation vs. Native Adoption

Hassan Mahfouzi2025-11-04T11:07:01+00:00 Executive SummaryFor Chief Technology Officers and IT strategists, the ISO 20022 migration presents a critical architectural crossroads: "Translation" vs. "Native Adoption." With the 2025 deadline looming, the tactical choice is often to implement a translation layer—middleware that converts new MX messages into legacy MT formats....

Beyond Compliance: Unlocking Business Value with ISO 20022’s Rich Data

Hassan Mahfouzi2025-11-04T11:00:35+00:00 Executive SummaryFor many financial institutions, the migration to ISO 20022 is viewed as a massive, mandatory compliance project—a costly IT hurdle to be cleared by the 2025 deadline. This "compliance-first" mindset completely misses the point. The true significance of ISO 20022 is not the format...

The Great Migration: Navigating the 2025 Shift to ISO 20022

Hassan Mahfouzi2025-11-04T11:03:45+00:00 Executive SummaryThe global financial system is in the final phases of its most significant upgrade in a generation: the mandatory migration to ISO 20022. This is not a simple technical update; it is a fundamental shift in the language of money, moving from the cryptic,...