Sibos 2026: Dfns' Clarisse Hagège on Why Banks Should Start Their Digital Asset Journey With Security

Quick Summary

Four years ago at Sibos in Toronto, tokenisation barely featured on the agenda. Today, says Clarisse Hagège of Dfns, it's all anybody is talking about. Speaking at Sibos 2026, she explains how banks typically approach digital assets, and why the finality of blockchain transactions makes security the first thing to get right.

How has the conversation around tokenisation changed?

"Banks are finally adopting blockchain technology and we couldn't be happier," says Hagège. When she was at Sibos in Toronto four years ago, there were fewer than 10 tokenisation topics on the agenda. Now banks are talking about issuing tokenised deposits, tokenising collateral and many other initiatives, and Dfns' goal is to help them on that journey.

How do banks typically start with digital assets?

Hagège describes a familiar sequence:

• Choose the blockchain: permissioned or public. That decision largely defines the stack they will need and how the use case is deployed internally
• Define the use case
• Build the infrastructure: the core solution needed to start deploying digital asset services

Why does security matter so much?

On blockchain and DLT, transactions are final. For any serious large financial institution, Hagège says, that makes security of the utmost importance. Her advice to prospects and clients is to start the digital asset journey by building sound foundations.

FF NEWS TAKE:

Hagège's Toronto comparison is a neat measure of how fast the agenda has moved: from a handful of sessions to the main conversation at Sibos in four years. Her point about finality is the one that matters for banks. In traditional rails, mistakes can often be reversed. On-chain, they generally can't, which is why the custody and key management layer is where serious institutions need to start.