What BNP Paribas Wants From Sibos 2026: Getting Tokenisation to Scale

Quick Summary

Ahead of Sibos 2026 in Miami, Wayne Hughes, Digital Assets Market & Client Engagement Lead, Securities Services at BNP Paribas, says his priority is simple: engaging clients and market counterparts on how to get tokenisation to scale together. His advice to delegates is to use the digital assets sessions and networking to the same end, and his hope is that the industry soon talks about tangible value rather than potential.

What is Wayne Hughes looking forward to in Miami?

For Hughes, Sibos ties directly into the themes of the whole conversation. He is looking forward to engaging with market counterparts and clients, and to working out how the industry can effectively work together to get digital assets to scale. That is, he says, in everyone's interest. It is a consistent message from someone who has argued throughout the interview that the remaining challenges are about ecosystems, collaboration and institutional readiness rather than technology, and that no single institution can deliver scale on its own.

What should delegates prioritise in the digital assets stream?

Hughes deliberately avoids naming individual sessions, noting that there are a lot of digital assets sessions on the programme. Instead, his advice mirrors his own plans:

• Take advantage of the sessions across the digital assets stream
• Use the networking opportunities, which at Sibos are often as valuable as the stage
• Focus conversations on how the industry can move tokenisation in the right direction, together

For a conference that brings custodians, market infrastructures, banks and technology providers into the same halls, that emphasis on collaboration is exactly where the value lies.

What should be different by Sibos 2027?

Closing the interview, Hughes was asked what he hopes the industry will be saying about tokenisation a year from now. His answer is that he would like to hear less about what tokenisation could deliver and far more about the tangible value it is delivering. He acknowledges years of good work and real benefits already, but believes the industry is ready for the next step: converging, creating an ecosystem and moving to a point where tokenisation becomes part of the normal functioning of capital markets, rather than a collection of individual initiatives.

FF NEWS TAKE:

This is the right ambition for Miami. The digital assets agenda at Sibos has been full of firsts for years. The test Hughes sets for 2027, tangible value and normal market functioning, is a harder and more honest benchmark. If the week produces fewer announcements and more agreements between counterparties on shared rails, it will have been a good Sibos for tokenisation.