Sibos 2026: The industry gathers in Miami
Javier Pérez-Tasso opens Sibos: The question isn't TradFi or DeFi anymore
Sibos 2026: The industry gathers in Miami
September 2026 - Sibos edition | Read time: 4 minutes
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Javier Pérez-Tasso opens Sibos: The question isn't TradFi or DeFi anymore
Speaking from the opening plenary at Sibos 2026, Swift’s CEO, Javier Pérez-Tasso, shared his vision for the future of regulated digital value.
"The question isn't TradFi or DeFi anymore. It's not either or," he said. "The Swift platform will allow you to move any form of regulated value, whether it is fiat or tokenised, at global scale."
That future is already taking shape. Today, Swift announced new work with the community to help make international payments as simple and intuitive as domestic ones, enabling people to pay across borders using familiar aliases such as mobile numbers and email addresses.
Sibos Day 1 wrap
More than a vision: Building the next era of cross-border payments
Conversations across three Sibos sessions highlighted a common theme: the industry's focus is shifting from exploration to execution.
In Live, scaling, next: the next evolution of cross-border payments, Swift's Nick Kerigan and François Maigre explored how customer adoption, live implementations and new payment capabilities are helping to turn strategic ambitions into tangible outcomes. As Nick noted, "The next evolution in cross-border payments is not a future concept, it's already happening."
Meanwhile, in The Swift ledger: from vision to implementation, Thomas Dugauquier of Swift and Bruno Mellado of BNP Paribas explored how interoperable tokenised money is moving closer to practical implementation.
The theme continued in How tokenised finance is moving from concept to reality, where speakers from Banco Itaú, Bank of England, Anchorage Digital and Société Générale examined the barriers to scaling tokenised finance. As Société Générale’s Olivier Sfartman put it: “We’ve moved from a proof of concept to a proof of value. Now we need to move to a proof of scale, and scaling is about connectivity and standardisation.”
Together, the sessions underscored that success will depend not only on innovation, but on connecting new technologies to trusted infrastructure, common standards and the scale needed for real-world adoption.
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Accelerating the future of payments
Banks align on the future of cross-border payments
What do customers want from cross-border payments? According to banks across the Swift community, the priorities are clear: speed, transparency and predictability. Perspectives from institutions including BNY, Barclays, BNP Paribas, Citi, Commonwealth Bank, DenizBank, Deutsche Bank, HSBC, J.P. Morgan, NatWest Group, Standard Chartered, TD Bank and Yapı Kredi show how the Swift payments scheme is helping deliver a more consistent and trusted payment experience for customers worldwide. Watch the videos and explore the Swift payments scheme.
When finance becomes intelligent
What happens when AI agents, programmable money and tokenised assets converge? Rachel Levi, Head of AI, Analytics and Automation at Swift, explores how financial services could become more autonomous, adaptive and intelligent, and what the industry must do to build trust in an agent-driven future. Read the article.
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Moving what matters. Around Miami, too.
Our Swift shuttle has been on the move across Miami, connecting the Sibos community and keeping conversations flowing on day one.