Sibos 2015: innovation hype, regional questions top agenda

Our Sibos roundup identifies some key focus areas for the annual behemoth event, which visits Singapore for the third time in 2015

Sibos: coming to Singapore

In a few weeks, Sibos returns to Asia for the third time in four years.

After a record-setting event in Osaka in 2012 and a successful iteration in Dubai in 2013, Singapore is the chosen destination this October after a memorably rainy week in Boston last year. It is the conference's first visit to the city-state since 2003.

Now, just how much can we read into a host city? Quite a lot, actually.

Singapore combines aspects of both its immediate predecessors, and for that matter, its most recently announced successor in London, too – and all three of these commonalities presuppose relevant technology questions.

Assessing Asia differently

Start with geography.

Asia-Pacific, of course, has been a target region for financial services and data providers for years – both because of its growth broadly outstripping the West, and because of its regulatory and cultural fragmentation offering room for specialisation.

Concerns over the stability of several Asian currencies and the economic transformation in mainland China causing global turbulence have only served to heighten that interest, particularly in safer markets, such as Singapore (and Dubai). The question now is about practical consequences.

Will these concerns stop some projects in their tracks as firms look to redirect resources in the region? Will nascent local providers survive?

And with a dedicated Asean day at Sibos, the programme posits that this supranational consortium is still relevant. We'll be interested to hear from local banking institutions as well as the G14 about how it can overcome increasingly schismatic domestic political agendas to open up the region.

Assisting the buy side

Boston makes its presence felt, too. Singapore – like New England's largest city – hosts an increasingly large share of investment managers and buy-side shops seeking a foothold in the region.

By its nature and history, Sibos is still primarily a banking conference, but hosting the show in "buy-side towns" for two consecutive years only further demonstates that proximity is becoming a priority. The 2014 opening keynote, in no coincidence, was from Chris Perretta, CIO at the quintessentially Bostonian State Street.

As was the case last October, this connection makes itself most evident in the compliance space, and particularly with the work that several major technology providers – including Swift – are doing around streamlining know-your-customer (KYC) and client onboarding processes that have ballooned in recent years.

But the conference should also highlight how wealth management is evolving in Asia. Mobility, digitisation and ways that initiatives implemented here are reversing the strategy flow – by getting exported back to Europe and North America – should all be topics of interest.

All aboard the inno-hype train

Finally, like London, which will host in 2019, Singapore proudly boasts of its credentials as a fintech hub, with everyone from startup infrastructure providers to the vaunted Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) trumpeting new plans for spurring technology innovation and investment.

In Boston, the stand-alone Innotribe agenda was probably one of the conference's most interesting, and while several subjects on this year's schedule are essentially the same – including blockchain, virtual currencies and next-generation APIs, among others – the perspective has undoutedly changed.

In 2014, many major banks had executives in the room, sure. They mostly spoke carefully and with some level of reluctance (if at all) about their work in these areas, however. The more vocal speakers were entrepreneurs doing their best Steve Jobs impression.

Fast forward a year, and institutions are actively embracing future technologies. Times, they are a'changing.

It should be fascinating to see these sentiments tested and debated. In quite a turnabout, Innotribe could prove a reality check for what's on the horizon, as much as a demonstration of the future's potential. Frankly, it probably should.

This article was originally published on sister website WatersTechnology.com.