Fishburn Hedges

27.09.2011

To most people Toronto might mean the Maple Leafs, the Blue Jays or perhaps walking on the world’s highest glass floor at the top of the CN Tower. But last week the city was transformed into the home of Sibos, the world’s premier financial services event, organised by SWIFT, the member-owned cooperative that provides products and services to more than 9,500 banking organisations, securities institutions and corporate customers in 210 countries.

Spending four days in a largely underground conference centre with around 7,500 people from the financial services community – each given their own wheelie suitcase at registration – might not sound like your idea of fun, let alone exciting. But a glance through some of the coverage from the 100-plus journalists who attended and reported on the event – which through the #Sibos hashtag began trending on Twitter - would quickly prove that wrong.

On the agenda in Toronto was everything from the increasing importance of cloud computing and emerging markets to the way that mobile technology and social media are transforming the way we all interact with our banks, and of course how banks are interacting with us. Discussions about new regulations, and how standards and technology can help firms meet those challenges, rivalled in popularity the free, cuddly lions being given away by a certain Dutch bank.

But the usual corporate gifts aside, there was a vast amount for every delegate to take away from this year’s Sibos. Through its interactive, inclusive nature, the conference allows participants to really grapple with the major questions and themes that are affecting their companies, discuss them, and propose collaborative solutions that could help shape the future of the industry and arguably the world.

Nowhere was this more true than in the innovation stream - Innotribe - where technology leaders, trend setters and trend watchers came together to trade virtual currencies, foregoing their name badges to create and explore new digital identities. At the “in conversation with” sessions the audience got to quiz the CEOs of Royal Bank of Canada, ScotiaBank and DBS Bank, grilling them on everything from the minutiae of their strategic priorities in Latin America, to the biggest questions affecting the world economy.

At a time when top banks are being asked hard questions about their usefulness, risk controls and management capability, this was an opportunity to see the genuinely innovative side of global finance, at work and play. See you in Osaka for Sibos 2012?