Incumbent banks are not like their challengers. They carry more infrastructure, more history, and more obligation. But they also hold advantages that challengers cannot easily replicate: a physical footprint that reaches customers where they live, customer trust built over decades of relationships, and deep expertise gained from a decade of digital transformation and the data assets that came with it. The question is not whether these advantages matter. It is whether banks can move from owning every part of the customer experience to orchestrating it, turning constraints into competitive advantage before the window closes.
In addition to plenary sessions, our conference is structured around eight blocks that address key questions facing practitioners today. The agenda is designed so that attendees with specific focus areas can attend sessions relevant to them without missing anything else they care about.
Every retail bank has a mobile app, and most have digitized the straightforward customer journeys. What comes next is harder and less obvious. Generative AI is moving from pilot to production across the industry, but most banks are still struggling to close the gap between experimentation and measurable returns. Change management, data readiness, and prioritising the right use cases matter more than the technology itself. This session surfaces what banks are actually deploying, what is delivering results, and where the next wave of digital differentiation is coming from.
Branches are closing across Europe, but the demand for physical presence has not disappeared. In France alone there are still nearly 19,000 bank branches, and despite years of rationalization the country still has a higher branch density than the European average. The question is no longer whether branches matter but what they should do and who should staff them. This session brings together practitioners redesigning branch networks, rethinking workforce models, and building advisory capabilities for affluent, mass market, and underserved customer segments.
In the U.K., high street banks still hold 83% of primary banking relationships, yet only 26% of customers who opened a new account in the last year chose their existing bank. The pattern is not one of dramatic switching but of quiet drift, with customers picking up products and relationships elsewhere without ever formally leaving. For most banks the real risk is not losing the account but losing the relevance that makes the account worth having. This session explores what primacy actually means now, where personalisation is making a measurable difference to retention, and how banks are earning back the daily engagement that used to come for free.
The global ATM installed base fell 7% between 2020 and 2024, and operational costs continue to rise faster than transaction fees. Yet cash access remains a legal obligation in the U.K. and in a growing number of European markets. Banks are responding with shared networks, deposit automation, and outsourcing arrangements that are fundamentally changing how the self-service channel is run. This session looks at what sustainable ATM and cash access looks like in practice, and how the banks and partners getting it right are doing so.
Fintech firms have moved from filling gaps left by banks to actively substituting for them across payments, lending, and cash management. For most banks, open banking is still a compliance exercise. For the ones pulling ahead it is a distribution strategy, built around fintech partnerships and API platforms that pull customers closer rather than hand them to a competitor. The difference between the two positions is whether the bank ends up orchestrating the customer experience or providing invisible infrastructure behind someone else’s brand. This session is about how banks are making that shift.
Global scam losses exceeded US$1 trillion in 2024, and generative AI is making attacks faster and harder to detect. But it is also giving banks new tools to fight back, with 73% of fraud executives now planning to transform how they educate and protect customers. The opportunity is to turn fraud prevention and identity from a cost that slows the bank down into a reason customers choose to stay. This session looks at the banks making security a competitive advantage rather than an operational expense.
In Sweden, digital wallets already account for over half of consumer digital payments, and account-to-account payment methods are suppressing card usage in online spending across multiple European markets. The payments mix banks relied on five years ago is not the one their customers use today, and the revenue implications are real. This session explores where payment revenue is heading, how banks are responding to the rise of real-time payments, digital wallets, and embedded finance, and what it all means for the economics of retail banking.
European banks are already spending between 7% and 25% of their operational budgets on payment resiliency alone, and regulators now treat outages as compliance breaches. The regulatory wave hitting European banking is real and it is expensive. The question every bank in the room faces is how to absorb it without starving the transformation program that is supposed to pay for it. This session tackles that trade-off head on.
| Tuesday, November 17, 2026 | |
| 8:00 AM – 9:00 AM | Registration & Breakfast |
| 9:00 AM – 9:15 AM | Welcome & Opening Remarks |
| 9:15 AM – 9:35 AM | Datos Keynote |
| 9:35 AM – 10:00 AM | Industry Keynote |
| 10:00 AM – 10:25 AM | Industry Keynote |
| 11:00 AM – 11:30 AM | Networking Break |
| 11:30 AM – 12:45 PM | Breakout Sessions |
| 12:45 PM – 1:45 PM | Networking Lunch |
| 1:45 PM – 2:45 PM | Breakout Sessions |
| 2:45 PM – 3:15 PM | Networking Break |
| 3:15 PM – 4:30 PM | Executive Roundtables |
| 4:45 PM – 5:45 PM | Innovation Showcase |
| 5:30 PM – 6:30 PM | Networking Reception |
| Wednesday, November 18, 2026 | |
| 8:30 AM – 9:30 AM | Networking Breakfast |
| 9:30 AM – 10:45 AM | Breakout Sessions |
| 10:45 AM – 11:15 AM | Networking Break |
| 11:15 AM – 12:30 PM | Breakout Sessions |
| 12:30 PM – 1:30 PM | Networking Lunch |
| 1:30 PM – 2:00 PM | Industry Keynote |
| 2:00 PM – 2:30 PM | Datos Keynote |
| 2:30 PM – 2:45 PM | Closing Remarks |
*Agenda is subject to change. Additional sessions and speakers will be announced in the coming weeks.