EXCLUSIVE: “Stable & Secure?” – Simone Loefgen, Commerzbank in ‘Discover Sibos 2025’

Simone Loefgen from Commerzbank addresses three of the big questions occupying banks’ minds at Sibos 2025

THE FINTECH MAGAZINE: Are we now moving closer to mainstream adoption of cryptocurrencies, stablecoins and central bank digital currencies (CBDCs)?

SIMONE LOEFGEN: For years, we’ve seen the industry discuss the potential of digital money, be that cryptocurrency, stablecoins or CBDCs. The prominence of cryptocurrency in these discussions often varies, according to the market cycle. From our point of view, crypto has become more of an investment asset class than a payment solution – it’s primarily traded and held for value appreciation. On stablecoins, it is a different story, and we are seeing interesting progress often coming from the US. CBDCs have been prohibited in the US, which has opened the market for stablecoin solutions that can potentially act as a new rail for cross-border payments.

Overall, the payments landscape is becoming more complex, and it may be the case that we move towards a more ‘multi-polar’ world with different rails available – Swift, stablecoins, perhaps even a digital Euro. The demands from clients are simple – they want fast, secure and stable solutions at an affordable price. The name of the game for banks is being flexible and receptive to innovation, whilst keeping safety controls intact. We always want a very robust, secure payments infrastructure, yet additional rails will add complexity. It’s a bit like a game of Jenga – the more layers you add on top, it can start to get unwieldy.

TFM: From October 9, the next milestone of the Instant Payments Regulation comes into force. How is Commerzbank assisting clients with the implementation of Verification of Payee (VoP) as part of that regulation?

SL: At all the industry conferences I visit, there isn’t one event where verification of payee isn’t discussed. The value-add for retail banking customers is quite clear, but for corporates, the view of this particular regulation is more nuanced. Corporates are naturally concerned about the implications of the changes for their own systems, and we have been running a series of sessions to provide helpful advice and expertise – some of these sessions have received thousands of registrations.

Communication and collaboration are the keys to an effective transition here. In a way, there are parallels with the migration to ISO 20022. We are prepared to help our clients adjust, meeting them where they are.

TFM: AI is regarded as a likely game-changer. In which ways are you seeing practical implementation of AI within payments?

SL: The payments landscape has always been at the forefront of technological change, and the rapid advancement of AI is another example of how change can happen quite quickly. There is a huge amount of excitement around AI, and the banking sector is consistently looking for new uses for this technology. For example, we were one of the first banks in Germany to implement an AI agent into our retail banking app. Our virtual colleague, Ava, is already able to respond and execute some smaller operational tasks. However, we must remember that there are also risks from a payments perspective.

Such risks mainly revolve around fraud, cybercrime and the continued risk of deepfakes. AI has made video and voice emulation much easier. We are also increasingly seeing a battle of the AIs, so to speak. On one side, there are fraudsters and criminals. On the other side, banks are using AI for fraud prevention, where it can be very powerful through tools like pattern recognition.

At Commerzbank, we launched a feature called FraudAI, for instance, which detects attempted fraud on account opening, and we continue to collaborate with EBA Clearing on their fraud pattern anomaly detection initiative.

In a sense, there is an AI arms race between good and bad actors, so it’s essential to stay on top of technology, understanding the opportunities, but also the risks, to ensure you don’t fall short on your processes.

This article was published in Discover Sibos 2025, Page 35