A Network Business: What Deutsche Bank Wants to Talk About in Miami

Quick Summary

Asked what she is most looking forward to at Sibos, Deutsche Bank''s Tsvetanka Nankova returns to a single idea: transaction banking is a network business, and that network is built by people, including competitors. Her Miami list runs from SWIFT payment schemes and the SWIFT ledger to blockchain settlement, digital assets and ESG.

Why does Nankova call it a network business?

The phrase is one she uses often, and the emphasis falls on how the network is actually built: by excellent people across the globe, drawn from partner institutions and from competitors alike. A network only sustains itself when those people keep coming together to discuss the topics that move the industry forward. It is a useful corrective to a technology-first reading of transaction banking, where infrastructure gets the attention and the relationships that make the infrastructure usable get taken for granted.

What should people come and talk to Deutsche Bank about?

Nankova is explicit that the bank is prepared to talk about all of it, and lists the thought leadership conversations she is looking for:

• SWIFT payment schemes and the SWIFT ledger.
• Blockchain settlement, digital assets and digital currencies.
• ESG and artificial intelligence across the transaction banking value chain.

For anyone planning their week, that is a clear signal of where the bank''s senior transaction banking leadership expects the substantive conversations to happen.

What does a day at Sibos actually look like?

Her closing observation is a practical one. Each day at Sibos is extremely busy, and it is usually rounded off with events, either at booths or at receptions across different venues. She looks forward to that part too, which is consistent with everything else she says: in a business built on trust and long-term partnership, the evening programme is not an add-on to the week''s work but part of how it gets done.

FF NEWS TAKE:

The topic list is worth reading as a statement of intent. A transaction bank offering to discuss the SWIFT ledger, blockchain settlement and digital currencies in the same breath as ESG is signalling that these have moved out of innovation teams and into the core commercial conversation. Miami will show whether the rest of the network has made the same move.