SWIFT has cancelled SIBOS, one of the largest banking and technology conferences in the world, in light of the COVID-19 pandemic.
This year’s event was scheduled to take place in Boston, US from 5 to 8 October.
With the physical event cancelled, SWIFT explained that they are exploring options to launch some “industry thought leadership content digitally that week and beyond”.
It is understood that all delegates that had signed up to attend since registration opened in March will be offered a full refund.
SWIFT, the global provider of secure financial messaging services, says: “We reached this decision after extensive consultation with the community and in the interest, first and foremost, of protecting the safety and wellbeing of our customers, partners and staff.
“This is not a decision we take lightly, but one we believe is the most responsible course of action given global circumstances.”
“So please hold on to the dates in your diary. We will update www.sibos.com as these plans take shape,” SWIFT adds.
The theme for this year’s conference was 'driving the evolution of smart finance'. The programme was to explore how the financial industry can make better decisions and run smarter businesses while optimising technology and data.
Last year, the conference was held in London for the first time and took place at the ExCeL, between 23 and 26 September.
It was a recording-breaking event for attendance with 11,500 delegates and more than 300 exhibitors, SWIFT says.
Next year’s event will be hosted by Singapore from 11 to 14 October 2021.
As well as being one of the largest, SIBOS is also one of the oldest running conferences for the finance sector. It began as a banking operations seminar in 1978 and has since grown into a stable of the events calendar for the global finance market.
The cancellation marks only the second time the event has not gone-ahead in its long history. The first time was in 2001, when the conference was due to take place in Singapore in October but was pulled following the 11 September terrorist attack on the Twin Towers in New York.
