The panel included Toby Brown of Google Cloud, Victoria Cleland of the Bank of England, Debopama Sen of Citi, Raj Seshadri of Mastercard, and Patricia Sullivan of Deutsche Bank. Key themes discussed were the developments in AI and cloud; innovation and competitions; as well as stablecoin and blockchain.
AI and cloud
From 2024 to 2025, AI use cases have turned from generative AI to agentic AI. Brown acknowledged that, while he narrative over the last year has shifted towards scepticism of the gains AI can help organisations achieve, their Google Cloud AI benchmarking survey found that financial organisations are building the muscle and the institutional capability to operationalise and scale AI.
Of the hundreds of institutions they have surveyed, over 50% already have AI agents deployed, and 30-50% of those organisations are already seeing ROI from their agents. The key of achieving his, Brown commented, lies in building a high quality data foundation. “When I look at what’s going to help banks win in the future, those who are able to create the tightest fibre possible around data and AI together — those are the people who are the best position for success,” he stated.
Sen added that at Citi, they see three key elements to achieving resilient and scalable AI while maintaining a focus on infallible customer experience:
Innovation and competition
,Over the last year, tokenisation has entered the mainstream and use cases are starting to expand. Speaking on how they are maintaining and encouraging this innovation while simultaneously adopting the caution that the industry expects from central banks, Cleland explained that the Bank of England has to manage this as both a regulator and an operator.
“One of the reasons why we do need to be careful is that as a central bank, we’re actually creating something that is critical national infrastructure,” she emphasised. “It’s for financial stability. We’re building it for the public good and need to get it right. We have a centralised ledger, so we can’t move a few people on one day, and then a few people on another one. We have to go for big bang.”
However, this is not stopping the drive to innovation. Cleland gave multiple examples on how the Bank of England is driving forward, including the introduction of their new RTGS system (which enabled other systems and participants connected to it to use DLT), as well as experiments of using FX synchronisation to enhance cross-border payments. “With our new RTGS system, we have a very modular approach, so we can put bits in and out,” she explained. “So that means we can adapt quickly to changes. We’ve built far more capacity than we need at the moment.”
From Deutsche Banks’ perspective, Sullivan described the three key principles that stand the test of time for leading through innovation:
“We’re sitting on large troves of data, but it’s more than just moving payments fast,” Sullivan expanded. “It’s using AI actively putting formulas over the data to provide a useful product back to our clients. For example, with the use of AI, we’ve recently led an analysis of how tariffs were impacting a certain part of our client group, and how supply chains were shifting. We were then able to provide our clients with actionable intelligence that they could use to help guide their businesses.”
Brown added that, as a cloud provider, it was their aim to give institutions the financial services grade platform to build on and enable this innovation. Rather than being a disruptor themselves, they are helping to “enable disruption for your institution and for the industry at large, so that the innovation is coming from your institution and not at your institution.”
Stablecoin and blockchain
The conversation than shifted to the final theme, which is arguably the topic of the year: stablecoin and blockchain. Seshadri explained that stablecoins are akin to just another currency from the Mastercard perspective.
“What it provides is an ability to expand the addressable market for us and for our bank partners,” Seshadri emphasised. “As the regulatory regimes are emerging further, it enables us to build our capabilities in a more robust way. For our partners — whether it’s a bank or a corporation that a bank works with — it gives them the comfort and the clarity to enter the space. The way you bring these use cases to life is through collaboration across the ecosystem. So, regulation brings clarity in order to drive collaboration and bring new things to the market.”
Kansal then turned to Sen to ask how banks remain indispensable rather than invisible if blockchain rails allow corporates to settle directly and with counter parties in minutes, without correspondent banking.
“It’s always good to call out the elephant of the room,” Sen quipped. “When the digital wallet ecosystem first emerged, there was a very similar conversation. What we have found through our payment rails and our banking capabilities is that the digital wallet ecosystem actually has been a wonderful enabler of reaching a cross-section and addressing a section of the market that was unaddressed in the past.”
She continued that Citi sees it as an opportunity of integration. To highlight this point even further, she referred to the announcement from Monday, that Citi would integrate their blockchain-based platform with their 24/7 USD Clearing solution.
Cleland expanded that there are a couple of different angles that they’re considering from a central bank perspective. This includes thinking about how to enable stablecoins to second central bank money and the mechanics of connecting stablecoins to RTGS systems; enabling players using DLT to use programmability within RTGS, or synchronisation (for example linking the RTGS ledger to a real estate ledger. She added that the Bank of England is also currently running a DLT innovation challenge for the public sector, exploring how to use wholesale central bank money on external, programmable ledgers.
However, no innovation can take place without the workforce embracing it. Concluding the session, Kansal asked the panel how to achieve success, and which changes to embrace. The responses were similar: collaboration, co-creation, and crucially, ensuring humans and technology (especially AI) remain interoperable. Embracing the skill set that is needed in today’s world, and cutting through the noise of an accelerating number of new innovations by focusing on outcomes.
