Akber Jaffer, CEO, Smartstream
At Sibos Frankfurt 2025, Akber Jaffer, CEO of Smartstream, explained how the company is refreshing its brand and investing in cloud, APIs and AI to deliver secure, resilient and innovative post-trade solutions to financial institutions worldwide.
Smartstream has long been known for reconciliation and post-trade automation. On Day 3 of Sibos Frankfurt 2025 its chief executive, Akber Jaffer, used the “next frontier” theme to describe why infrastructure is the bedrock of every enabling technology and how Smartstream is unlocking trusted, intelligent data insights and operational resilience across its global customer base
Infrastructure as the foundation for innovation
Jaffer said one of Sibos’ big announcements was about infrastructure development, especially distributed ledger technology. “That lead with infrastructure is very important for a company like Smartstream,” he said, because “a lot of the enabling technologies-cloud, application programming interfaces (APIs), artificial intelligence (AI)-are really focused on infrastructure.”
He explained that Smartstream has been “spending a lot of time putting research and development” into ensuring its infrastructure is “future ready” for customers. This includes refactoring legacy components into microservices and adopting modern security standards so banks can comply with regulations such as the European Union’s Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA).
A global reach with local sensitivity
Jaffer emphasised Smartstream’s global footprint. Like Swift, the company partners with leading institutions worldwide, delivering tailored solutions and strategic support across diverse markets and regions. Its global footprint, enabling it to meet the unique needs of clients wherever they operate..” Being in Frankfurt for Sibos is vital because “much of our business is centred around Europe” and the event lets the firm engage with existing and prospective clients to understand challenges and feed ideas back into product development.
He pointed out that regulatory expectations differ across regions and Smartstream invests to make its solutions flexible enough to adapt, for example to near-real-time reporting rules in Europe and Asia.
