Campos was speaking at the opening session of the Innotribe stream, an initiative started at last year's event in Hong Kong which aims to encourage collaboration between delegates and culminates with a panel of venture capitalists selecting the best innovation of the week during a Dragon's Den-style session on the Thursday afternoon.

"We need to innovate as an industry and as a company," said Campos. "We need to change the way we do things." He referred to Swift's own innovation team which was established in 2008 and is at the centre of Swift's 2015 strategy.

The opening session also featured presentations from a range of technologists and bankers who highlighted the trends driving change in the financial services industry - from the new rules of the digital community, to the need for passion, to the importance of 'nowism' and instant gratification, to the redefinition of money by a new generation of consumers.

"There is a class of young, intelligent and creative people that have become disillusioned with existing banking models and are looking to create new peer-to-peer models for financial transactions," said Venessa Miemis, a graduating student of NYC and creator of a videoblog The Future of Money. "I hope these two worlds can come together."

The Innotribe stream will include R&D sessions, workshops and a start-up competition and will cover four main themes - cloud computing; smart data; mobile; and 'the long now' - which aims to forecast long-term trends.

In closing the session Campos emphasised the challenge of encouraging innovation in what is a risk-averse industry and called for innovation in everyday processes and not just "cute apps". "Making innovation mainstream is a significant shift. Our innovation team has been going for three years and we have not even started yet so that is why we need your help."