Aqua Global, a specialist in financial messaging, has revealed that iFAST Global Bank has chosen its Aquila platform to facilitate the launch of its Digital Personal Banking services, which will enable multi-currency payments from the outset.
Launched in 2023, Aquila serves as Aqua’s multi-channel messaging solution and forms the backbone of iFAST’s payment operations. The platform accommodates nine currencies — GBP, USD, EUR, HKD, SGD, CNY, JPY, CHF, and AED — allowing customers to manage funds across borders. Since its introduction in 2022, iFAST has effectively scaled its operations and is now gearing up for a second phase that will focus on providing transactional banking-as-a-service for corporate clients and partner banks.
The implementation of Aquila enhances visibility across iFAST’s core banking and digital platforms, enabling real-time monitoring of payment statuses, sanctions screening, and exception management through a unified interface. As noted in the announcement, this has minimized the need for manual interventions, bolstered operational resilience, and expedited issue resolution for customers. The platform also offers native connectivity to Swift and CHAPS as well as integrated ISO 20022 processing, which ensures compliance with standards such as FATF 16 and Swift CBPR+.
Inayat Kashif, CEO of iFAST Global Bank, stated, “Our objective was to create a genuinely modern banking platform that could scale globally from day one.”
Kashif added, “Utilizing Aquila allowed us to implement multi-currency payments on a cloud-native framework, manage increasing transaction volumes confidently, and fulfill evolving regulatory requirements without added complexity. The platform provides us with the agility to scale rapidly while retaining control and resilience, which has been instrumental in achieving profitability within our second operational year.”
Cian Fernando, CEO of Aqua Global, remarked, “Forward-thinking digital banks seek contemporary, cloud-native payment infrastructures without the encumbrance of developing and maintaining them independently. iFAST’s approach demonstrates how engineering-driven organizations can expedite their growth by collaborating with specialists, and we are proud to support its expansion with a scalable platform.”