(5 October 2026 – United States) Sibos 2026 explored how AI capabilities are being embedded in global transaction banking, regulated and scaled across the financial services industry.
Key highlights include Swift’s blockchain ledger going “live”, tokenised deposits took centre stage and AI agents moved from concept to reality within actual bank operations.
Treasurers are pushing their banking partners to outline which currencies and corridors are supported for tokenised-deposits or 24/7 settlement and model the impact “always-on liquidity” would have on their cash forecasting capability.
Fintech competition is raising client expectations of banks, and networks are increasingly targeting collections as a growth area.
BNY, BNP Paribas, Deutsche Bank, HSBC and Citi described live AI agents with the most common use highlighted as the exception queue, referring to repairing failed payments, checking trade documents and dispatching work.
While humans still release the payments Citi noted banks are training supervisors for each use case, including where people sit in the loop.
Stablecoins drew less attention from banks than tokenised deposits with most banks working out which use case suits which instrument rather than choosing one.
“Our blockchain-based ledger announced at Sibos 2025 is now live. By the end of 2026, at least 19 banks are expected to use it across five major currencies to power always-on payments with tokenised deposits” Swift CEO Javier Pérez-Tasso stated at the opening Sibos Miami 2026 plenary.
“The next phase will test whether tokenised deposits can move beyond single-bank platforms into a shared settlement layer. Projects such as Agorá, HK Ensemble and the UK’s tokenised deposit initiative are working on this” commented HSBC Head of Digital Currencies Lewis Lei Sun.