With a little bit of luck

Another year another Sibos, right?

We get together. We look back, we look ahead. We take stock. Reflect. Share a drink. And if we’re lucky, learn something.

I say 'if we’re lucky' because even though the intention is always there, learning is not always guaranteed as it is, ultimately, the result of many ingredients.

Making the time... being prepared to think through new thoughts that may challenge the old... find language to express these new thoughts... and then with luck and time and determination, do something about it all.

Because learning without action is nothing but a flight of fancy.

It's not an easy process. And we haven't always succeeded.

But we’ve come together year after year willing to try. And that's not nothing.

Ready to squint into the future and say... well... what do we think is coming? What do we think we need to be thinking about? We are worried alright... But.. Are we worried about the right things?

Year after year. We asked ourselves these questions. What is happening in this industry? What is technology doing to money as we know it? To banking as we know it?

And of course we asked ourselves... What is the future of money and our place in this story?

We had the conversations in the hallways and over breakfast and yes, of course, on stage.

We talked about new business models and APIs when they were brand new to us as an industry. We talked about DLT and then smart contracts and then CBDCs. We talked about the changing nature of value and our role in it all.

We talked about security, scalability, access. We talked about inclusion and identity and trust.

The thing is, looking back, we've been more right than wrong, but not quite right enough to predict the future.

Now, I will take 'more right than wrong' on any given day.

Particularly because we’ve learned one more thing, the hard way, admittedly, but we’ve learned it.

We are not in control of the future.

We are not in control of what does and doesn't happen.

But we are in control of what we do. We have learned that.

We can choose to lead. Or be led.

We know now that we have a choice over what we do, as sure as we know we don't have a choice over everything. Some things will happen whether we like them or not. There is a big wide world out there. Not all of it is in our gift. Learning that means we notice differently. Which is a win.

And this win means we’re now looking at the world and its changes differently.

And the future keeps coming at us fast and furious.

We are the payments industry and yet we've always been about more than that.

So in this year's Sibos we’re acknowledging exactly that.

We need to raise the bar.

The future of money is just part of the question.

Value is the main question.

The value we exchange, transact and store.

The value we protect, safeguard and occasionally abstract.

The future of money is dead. Long live the future of value debate.

I like this.

We had a choice to declare this goose cooked, you know. With CBDCs and real- time clearing and stable coins and what not, we could have said the future of money is now largely known . For a while.

We could have taken a victory lap.

But instead we said alright. This conversation isn't the right one any more. We have more answers than questions here, so let's cast the net wider.

The thing we have largely worked out... is only a fraction of the whole. Let's think bigger.

So the future of money debate is over because the future of value debate matters more.

Here we are, starting a new cycle of conversation that may last a decade.

And although I see the end of an era, for sure, I’m also looking forward to it.

It's a bigger question we’re taking on. But I feel we’re better equipped for it.

You see over the past decade or so, we've learned the questions we need to ask, we’ve learned not to feel bigger than we are... but also how to hold ourselves accountable for the right order of magnitude questions.

Plus we have the right people in the room.

Because this is Sibos, and it’s Innotribe, and it's the flagship debate and what we say on stage matters. But who is in the room matters more. Because, not only is this where the industry's decision-makers gather, it's also where its future leaders get together and go 'whatever is coming next is my problem and my watch and my responsibility. So let's do this thing.'

Knowing full well it will be a conversation that will last a long time.

No easy answers are forthcoming.

We will ask a lot of questions, we will get some things right, we will get some things wrong and if we’re lucky... we’ll learn something.

Leda will be speaking in the ‘Future of Value’ session, an evolution of our popular ‘Future of Money’ session, on Wednesday 20 September at 10:30 EDT . Her critically-acclaimed book, 'Bankers Like Us: Dispatches from an Industry in Transition', explores the challenges the banking industry faces in its journey towards digitisation. Stop by to hear Leda’s insights and pick up a signed copy of her book after the session.

Leda is also a speaker in the ‘Back to the Future of Money’ session on Tuesday 19 September at 10:00 EDT.