Sibos 2026 Journal: A Backseat Perspective on Global Money Movement
On my first day at Sibos 2026, on the way to our team dinner, I struck up a conversation with my Uber driver, a Venezuelan immigrant who moved his family to the U.S. eight years ago. As we chatted, I commented on the music—a smooth-voiced crooner performing classics from the American songbook. My driver was .. The post Sibos 2026 Journal: A Backseat Perspective on Global Money Movement…
During his stay at Sibos 2026, the author had an insightful conversation with the Uber driver, a Venezuelan immigrant who narrated his journey to the U.S., buying a home, and raising his children. The driver shared his perspective on the U.S.'s involvement in Venezuela, focusing on gold rather than oil. This anecdote stayed with him throughout the conference, where discussions centered on the transformation of global money movement infrastructure.
AI was a significant focus, but conversations with bankers and vendors highlighted a broader narrative. Tokenization, digitalization, programmable payments, and new operating models were moving from experimentation to utilization. Banks face challenges in adopting this technology at scale and justifying the investment. Dan Goerlich, U.S. banking & capital markets leader at PwC, noted that clients are moving away from traditional risk and regulatory programs to engineering and technology projects with clear ROI.
Tokenization, digital assets, and tokenized infrastructure are seen as a larger shift than AI alone. Tokenization can enable value to move without crossing borders, while digital assets could signal a substantial change. At BNY, AI agents handle routine tasks like payments, sanctions screening, and KYC, freeing employees to focus on higher-value work. This shift in focus raises the question of how these technologies will integrate into the existing financial infrastructure.
Interoperability emerged as a challenge, with the expectation that multiple tokenization systems would emerge rather than a single industry standard. Trust issues were also highlighted, with both AI and blockchain requiring customer and institutional trust. Programmable payments, particularly in trade finance, were seen as an overlooked opportunity.
The discussions suggest that the next phase of financial technology is about connecting technologies, systems, and institutions, with trust and control of the infrastructure being key.
Written by urgent.news from Global Finance's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
