Aqua Global, a financial messaging specialist, has announced that iFAST Global Bank has selected its Aquila platform to support the launch of the start-up bank’s Digital Personal Banking services, enabling it to offer multi-currency payments from the outset.
Deployed in 2023, Aquila, which is Aqua’s multi-channel messaging solution, serves as the core payments infrastructure underpinning iFAST’s operations. The platform supports nine currencies including GBP, USD, EUR, HKD, SGD, CNY, JPY, CHF and AED, allowing customers to hold, send and spend money across borders. Since its 2022 launch, iFAST has used the infrastructure to scale its operations and is now preparing for a second phase focused on transactional banking-as-a-service for corporate clients and partner banks.
The Aquila deployment offers end-to-end visibility across iFAST’s core banking and digital platforms, providing real-time oversight of payment status, sanctions screening and exceptions management from a single interface. According to the announcement, this has reduced the need for manual intervention, strengthened operational resilience and improved resolution times for customer issues. The platform also delivers native connectivity to Swift and CHAPS alongside built-in ISO 20022 processing, supporting compliance with standards including FATF 16 and Swift CBPR+.
iFAST Global Bank CEO Inayat Kashif said, “Our goal was to build a truly modern banking platform that could scale internationally from day one.
“By deploying Aquila, we were able to launch multi-currency payments on a cloud-native architecture, process growing volumes with confidence and meet evolving regulatory requirements without adding complexity. The platform has given us the flexibility to grow quickly while maintaining control and resilience – playing a key role in helping us reach profitability by our second year of operation.”
Aqua Global CEO Cian Fernando said, “Leading digital banks want modern, cloud-native payments infrastructure without the burden of building and maintaining it themselves. iFAST’s approach shows how engineering-led organisations can move faster by partnering with specialists, and we’re proud to support its growth with a platform designed to scale as its ambitions expand.”
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