At Digital Finance Day 2026 in Zurich, we joined Swiss Banking and the Zürcher Bankenverband to explore what this requires across AI, digital identity, stablecoins and tokenised assets.

Four takeaways from the presentations:

  • Responsible AI has practical applications in regulation. FINMA Chair of Board of Directors Prof. Dr. Marlene Amstad presented a pilot using large language models, including Apertus, to summarise fintech business models and prepare source-backed assessments of potential licensing requirements. Human experts review and decide. Testing and optimisation remain ahead.
  • The customer interface is strategically important. Banks need to combine trusted relationships and verified data with clear controls over what AI can access, execute and record.
  • Digital assets need viable economics and connected infrastructure. Tokenisation requires end-to-end settlement, distribution and secondary-market liquidity. Stablecoins need useful applications and sustainable business models.
  • KYC improvement starts with connected information. Automating isolated steps leaves the underlying fragmentation unresolved.

Our SFTI breakout: Rethinking KYC & Customer Onboarding

Moderated by our President, Stephanie K. Wickihalder, the session connected Janine Døssing-Rosenbaum’s onboarding experience at Saxo Bank with Eliane Gmünder’s regulatory and compliance expertise.

Janine’s Nordic examples illustrated how digital identity and registry access can reduce repeated customer effort. Eliane identified capturing KYC data preparation and periodic reviews as practical starting points for AI support. Integrated and structured data as well as trusted and human curated regulatory and compliance requirements are key to successfully deploy AI agents in the area of KYC. With this approach, full traceability is ensuredSFTI brought customer experience and compliance implementation into one conversation. Our practical conclusion: assess digital identity, data integration and AI together across the customer lifecycle.

Thank you to Swiss Banking and the team around August Benz, Richard Hess, Denise Tschudin, Dilashi Jeyaratnaraja and the Zürcher Bankenverband with Christian Bretscher for the partnership and the organisation of Digital Finance Day 2026. We thank Marianne Wildi, Lidia Kurt, Jan De Schepper, Thomas Wüst, Marlene Amstad, Janine Døssing-Rosenbaum, Eliane Gmünder, all fellow speakers and participants for their contributions and exchange.

The exchange reinforced the value of SFTI’s role in connecting financial institutions and partners, enabling open dialogue and translating shared challenges into practical solutions for Switzerland’s financial ecosystem.