Fintech conversations at this year’s Sibos revealed a decisive shift in bank priorities. The dialogue moved from technological capability to operational viability. Banks are asking a different set of questions now: Who manages this infrastructure? What’s the business case? Can I adopt this without dismantling my existing operations?
Conversations with vendors showed a consistent winner’s profile. The fintech companies gaining real bank traction are the ones able to propose transformational technology while solving a narrower, more practical problem: how to augment existing capabilities without requiring the wholesale replacement that creates unacceptable risk and cost.
What Fintech Companies Should Be Doing
Bank conversations pointed to five specific actions fintech companies need to execute:
Build as a complementary layer. Stop messaging around core system limitations. Position your technology as an augmentation that sits above existing infrastructure and adds new capabilities. A bank that sells digital currency to treasury clients without core system replacement outperforms a pure-play fintech provider. If you enable that model, you move from vendor to foundational partner the bank actively retain.
Manage payment method complexity for end users. Banks now operate across too many payment rails, and more are coming. Bank executives don’t necessarily understand the differences between stablecoin types, when to use central bank digital currency vs. private networks, or when to route through traditional systems. Your function as a fintech partner isn’t to educate them on all of this. Rather, it’s to receive a simple instruction (e.g., “I need to move euros to this recipient by tomorrow”) and determine the optimal execution method automatically. That’s a user experience banks can commercialize.
Avoid technology monoculture. Don’t organize around a single innovative technology network or a single consortium of banks. Design systems that operate across different technical platforms and, for digital money, support multiple categories of it. Maintain compatibility with legacy payment systems, which will remain operational for at least another 10 years. Banks need flexibility and contingency planning.
Provide strategic decision support. Banks are making technology selection decisions in an environment with incomplete information. Do original research. Connect with other infrastructure players. Create decision frameworks that help banks think through their strategic options. That is strategic counsel, not a sales pitch. A fintech company that helps a bank make a better choice earns trust that outpaces transactional selling.
Get one production implementation live. Don’t stop at pilots or test environments. You win with live production transaction volume. A major bank trading digital currency in production with your solution proves that the business model works. That single case study carries more weight than a hundred white papers or pilot project press releases.
Partnership Models Beat Technology Bets
The fintech companies winning with banks right now are the ones solving problems banks face in their current operations. These fintech players don’t make banks wait for some idealized future state. Banks care about business partners who understand their environment. They have legacy systems that can’t disappear. They have regulators who examine their risk controls. They have customers who expect reliable service. They have competitors who pressure them to innovate. A fintech partner that makes all of that easier rather than harder controls the next five years of relationship value.
At Sibos, the conversation was no longer about the potential of blockchain, generative AI, and virtual ledgers. It was about which partnership models deliver real progress.
