Sibos 2009 is drawing to a close and, as every year, hundreds of meetings, presentations and discussions have taken place. While Sibos has traditionally been a correspondent banking event, there has been a marked change in the topics covered both during conversations among the delegates and in Wednesday’s Big Issue Debate and Thursday’s Payments Innovation session, both slightly veered away from the more expected subject areas.

So the question has to be, is it now time for the next incremental step to be taken that will make Sibos more of a voice of the entire industry? This is not a new thought I appreciate but the reason I am raising it, is that the topic of innovation has been a dominant theme here this week. However, we all recognise that silos stifle innovation. As such, it seems to me that Sibos itself cannot remain a silo as it will in turn stifle the very innovation under discussion.

Currently, there is no answer to this question available but we certainly have experienced delegates from a wider variety of the banks’ business lines attending the show this year. True agility in payments means convergence, we might see more of this variety in responsibilities and focus of Sibos delegates in the coming years. To be confirmed…