Speaking in the Corporate Treasury conference stream at Sibos 2026, Jacqueline O’Flanagan, Head of FS, Americas at Microsoft, was part of a ‘Meet the Experts’ panel in Miami on Wednesday 30th September.
The panel discussed the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) and digitisation via blockchain and other technological advances on high-friction workflows across payments, trading, treasury, on-boarding and regulatory operations. It also included representatives from Société Générale and BNY and was moderated by Capgemini (see their research at the end of this report).
“When I look at the evolution, we’ve already seen a huge shift. A couple of years ago at Sibos, people were toying with the idea of what AI was. Last year, it was about proof of concepts (PoC),” said O’Flanagan. “This year, businesses are actually thinking about it in the flow of work.”
In other words, CIBs and their corporate treasury clients are beginning to industrialise intelligence and use AI to rethink how they operate, find value and partner. Businesses are being reimagined for the AI era and for the 21st century.
“With this thinking now underway, we’re at an inflection point,” continued O’Flanagan. She outlined what this means across the payments ecosystem, when automated machine-to-machine (M2M) and agentic AI-initiated commerce transactions come fully on-stream. She also urged Sibos 2026 attendees to think about how this imminent digital era will impact the following:
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Value across payments (data mastery) and associated value chains (interoperability with embedded finance and aligned physical and financial supply chains) will be key. Ditto trust.
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Value across large CIBs, where the efficiency, speed and cost of corporate services and liquidity options in an always-on, 24/7 real-time operational era should improve.
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Value between fintech partners, providers and processors, including payment services processors (PSPs) and linkages with corporates, banks and customers. For this, it’s crucial to consider the processes in this digital era, your unique selling point (USP), and how the ecosystem and new economy based around AI, blockchain-based finance and digitisation will be disrupted, governed and supported in the future.
Data everywhere, with AI providing context
“Think about the data input, throughput and output, all the way through to the end customer,” advised O’Flanagan, when considering how best to industrialise intelligence.
“You also need to think about the new set of challenges in this era concerning data sovereignty for large multinational corporations (MNCs) that span the globe and touch multiple geographies, financial and autonomous payment systems, regulatory regimes, and so forth,” she said – sage advice in today’s unstable geopolitical environment.
According to fellow panellist Andreea Parneci, Deputy Head of Global Transaction & Payment Services, Société Générale: “The speed of innovation is changing too. AI is reducing the previous capability gap between large fintechs and banks. But conversely, it is also making it easier for CIBs to quickly innovate too.”
This means that in future, large CIBs such as Société Générale may be competing not with smaller banks, but with new fintech-enabled challengers. However, many of these fintechs could be co-opted in a similar way to the first wave of fintech challengers following the 2008 financial crash. First wave fintech disruptors found it hard to displace highly-regulated financial institution (FI) incumbents, with many choosing to cooperate in order to help their technologies achieve widespread uptake.
Industrial intelligence in action
Anjali Shah, MD of AI Strategy & Organisational Readiness for Global Payments & Trade at BNY, discussed how letters of credit (LCs) will fare in the AI era. “If a supplier wants to send an LC to market now, they won’t know where it will land – who’ll pick it up. Nowadays, with modern technology, you can automatically track it like you would an Uber driver.”
She later added: “Self-driving money is the future. It’ll take time – just like with my Tesla’s self-operation mode, which I’ve had for seven years now, but the functionality is there.”
What’s missing is the consumer acceptance, buy-in and reimagining of the chain. But as the Sibos 2026 panel highlighted, that process is underway.
Research shows evolving client expectations
During the debate, moderator Kieran Mullaley, Capgemini’s Global Head of Capital Markets, shared some research from his firm’s World Corporate & Investment Banking Report 2026. This gathered perspectives from 600 corporate and NBFI respondents and more than 150 banking executives.
As Mullaley explained: “We spoke to corporates and clients and found they want better data and faster turnaround times.”
According to the research, 62% of CIB clients are demanding digital self-service, and 58% want real-time responsiveness. This is understandable with real-time payment and liquidity services proliferating around the world, from FedNow in the US to the Pix system in Brazil. If these requirements are fulfilled, it could positively impact liquidity options, as BNY noted during the debate.
