A major strategic topic for banks globally is their future in the digital economy. Sweeping changes are shaping the digital finance landscape, including in customer behavior and expectations, new technologies, increasing competition with non-banks, and external dependencies from all types of critical providers. The impact of digital innovations such as Central Bank Digital Currencies, crypto assets and tokenisation, data sharing and open finance, cloud computing and AI on banks and banking is still largely unknown. Moreover, as digitalization introduces new market actors in financial services, the role that these challengers, especially Bigtechs, play in the new financial ecosystem, both as providers of financial services but also as providers of critical technology for banks’ digital innovation calls for a deep rethinking around regulation and supervision. At the same time, cyber-security and resilience, the cornerstone of digital innovation, becomes more complicated in a geopolitically volatile and deglobalizing environment.

This session will bring together a unique C-level perspective on the challenges and opportunities of digitalization of finance.  The panel will explore what is the road agead for banks, and discuss how they can leverage digitalisation to innovate, create new business opportunities and better service their customers to stay competitive in the digital world, while mitigating risks.