Rajashekara Maiya
Infosys Finacle
Vice President and Global Head of Business Consulting
From digital assets and AI to interoperability and composable architectures, the conversations at Sibos 2025 and Finacle Conclave 2025 captured both the challenges and aspirations of a rapidly transforming financial world. Beyond the buzzwords, these discussions reflected a deeper shift, one that will shape how banks operate, compete, and collaborate in 2026 and beyond.
Here’s a look by Rajashekara V. Maiya, Vice President and Global Head of Business Consulting at Infosys Finacle, at the key trends that will define banking’s next chapter and accelerate the shift toward more open, intelligent, and resilient financial ecosystems.
Trend 1: AI and agentic intelligence move from hype to impact
AI discussions at Sibos 2025 and Finacle Conclave 2025 were different this year, the tone shifted from “what if” to “how fast.” Banks and technology providers demonstrated agentic AI and copilots applied to fraud detection, reconciliation, and transaction surveillance, while others showcased AI copilots for transaction operations and real-time decisioning.
These use cases signal that AI is moving beyond experimentation into mission-critical workflows. The next phase will be agentic banking, where embedded intelligence drives contextual engagement, proactive decisioning, and adaptive operations. As banks embrace AI-first approaches, the focus will increasingly be on governance, explainability, and integration across the banking lifecycle.
Trend 2: The rise of regulated digital assets
One of the most compelling developments at Sibos and Finacle Conclave was the acceleration of tokenized money initiatives. SWIFT’s announcement of a shared blockchain-based ledger, developed with more than 30 banks across 16 countries,marked a major milestone toward enabling real-time, tokenized, cross-border payments with built-in compliance and governance.
This movement reflects a broader industry shift toward regulated digital money ecosystems, spanning tokenized deposits, central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), and asset-backed stablecoins. Financial institutions’ interest in tokenized deposits and stablecoins is growing, pointing to a future where programmable and compliant money coexists seamlessly with traditional infrastructure.
Trend 3: Composability and interoperability redefine the core
The ongoing transition to ISO 20022 remains uneven, but the message from industry leaders was clear: interoperability is no longer optional. ISO 20022 provides the foundation for data-rich, real-time, and compliant transactions that enable global consistency.
As SWIFT and regional payment infrastructures advance their adoption roadmaps, composable, API-first platforms will become critical. They offer the agility needed to respond to evolving messaging, compliance, and operational demands while supporting richer data-driven insights. In the coming years, banks that modernize their cores with composable and interoperable designs will be better positioned to thrive in the era of instant, data-led finance.
Trend 4: Preparing for a quantum-safe future
Cyber resilience took center stage at these events, with Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC) emerging as a key focus. As quantum computing edges closer to practical reality, the threat it poses to current encryption standards is being taken seriously.
Recent pilots and industry collaborations indicate that quantum-safe frameworks are moving from research to roadmap. Over the next few years, banks are expected to embed PQC within their infrastructure and security strategies. In this new paradigm, trust will hinge on invisible resilience - encryption that is quantum-safe, verifiable, and seamlessly integrated across digital ecosystems.
Trend 5: ESG and sustainable digitalization
Sustainability continued to be a defining theme at Sibos 2025, with discussions covering green finance, ESG-linked lending, and the environmental footprint of AI. A striking insight was that digitalization itself is becoming a lever for sustainability, reducing reliance on paper, cash, and energy-intensive operations.
Digital public infrastructure models such as India’s UPI were cited as proof that inclusion and sustainability can scale together. As banks align technology investments with ESG outcomes, sustainability will evolve from a compliance checkbox to a core business metric, guiding decisions on technology adoption, process design, and customer engagement.
The Way Forward
Sibos 2025 and Finacle Conclave 2025 underscored that the next frontier of global finance will be shaped by technology convergence, where AI, digital assets, composability, quantum security, and sustainability intersect to create a more agile, secure, and inclusive banking future.
As we move toward 2026 and beyond, banks that can orchestrate these forces cohesively, blending innovation with governance and inclusion, will define the next era of corporate banking.