After last year’s stellar event in Munich, EBAday 2019 returns to the Nordics to welcome 1500 expert banking executives and innovation leaders to Stockholm to explore digital transformation in payments and this watershed moment for the industry.

Ehrmann highlights that the sector needs to take a closer look at positive disruption and the related opportunities and risks that are generated by accelerated digital transformation. He adds that a shift from innovation to practical propositions needs to be encouraged to make a true difference for customers – a key discussion point for the two-day conference.

While increasing efficiency for corporate treasury and correspondent banking has been widely discussed, financial services executives need to evaluate new answers and insights into drivers for existing technology and the tools we will soon have, like “APIs, DLT, AI, Request to Pay and ISO20022,” to name a few.

To focus on digital transformation, Ehrmann says “the human factor plays an important part and can drive and support change.” Evaluating skills to build on innovation and in turn, collaboration is inherent in Sweden: “Sweden has a long tradition of setting out vision and strategy to achieve them,” Ehrmann adds.

He goes on to herald Sweden’s Vision Zero initiative, which was launched in 1997 and in five years, cut down pedestrian road traffic accident fatalities by 50%. In the same vein, Ehrmann also celebrates climate change activist Greta Thunberg and how she was able to communicate her message to 1.4 million students in 112 countries who joined her in protest on the 15th of March 2019.

Ehrmann concludes with a message on the power of vision and when successful, can inspire others to implement strategy in a collaborative manner.