Despite economic headwinds, banks leveraged advanced technologies and a customer-centric approaches to drive balanced growth, with customer engagement, financial inclusion, and ecosystem development emerging as key strategies

Thirty-seven banks held assets surpassing $1 trillion, distributed among 16 in Asia Pacific, 13 in Europe, and eight in North America, representing 51% of the top 1000 banks’ total assets; overall asset growth has decelerated, with the US and some European nations experiencing steep declines and countries like Egypt demonstrating resilience

Digital currencies are revolutionising global finance and erasing borders, and while DeFi and the creator economy drive privacy-focused systems independent of governments, the narrative centers on traditional finance and DeFi convergence

Investors’ risk appetite and fondness for fintechs have cooled, leading to a 42% drop in global funding and 57% drop in APAC funding in the first half of this year

Taiwanese consumers voted E.Sun Bank as the Most Recommended Retail Bank, giving it a 13% BankQuality™ Score. CTBC Bank emerged as the Most Selected Main Bank, securing 20% of the bankable population for primary relationships

Key takeaways from Sibos 2023: highlighting the importance of collaboration in addressing cross-border payment challenges, reducing transaction friction with ISO 20022, meeting G20 goals, improving efficiency through transaction manager, combating fraud through pre-validation, enabling tokenisation through interoperability, the impact of instant payments on people's lives, the potential of ISO 20022, the promise of CBDCs in cross-border settlement, and evolving solutions to combat financial crime.

The banking industry is using AI and data strategies to meet customer preferences focusing on digital culture, secure operations, and partnerships to overcome challenges and cultivate customer-centricity

The opening plenary at Sibos 2023 in Toronto featured insights from Swift's leadership on key financial industry trends, including AI, tokenisation, CBDCs, and ESG, emphasising their role in fostering collaboration and addressing economic challenges

Rahul Rasal, head of retail banking at Security Bank, is driving the bank's growth in retail banking and its transition to a digital, open-banking future, with a focus on customer-centric initiatives and collaboration with fintech entities

At Finance Malaysia 2023, senior executives in financial services discussed digital transformation and sustainable innovation in line with the Financial Sector Blueprint 2022-2026 set out by the central bank, Bank Negara Malaysia

Digital bank LINE BK is diversifying into wealth management and SME lending to strengthen its position as a holistic financial service provider

DBS’s Gupta is the highest-paid bank CEO in Asia Pacific, while Public Bank CEO Tay received the highest compensation as a percentage of net profit, with the combined total earned by the top 10 highest-paid bank chiefs in the region reaching $63.4 million in FY2022, up from $56.5 million in FY2021

Standard Chartered Ghana adopted a new business strategy to improve customer service and promote digital platform usage

TABInsights’ Financial Institutions Satisfaction Survey reveals global network support as the key force in driving the future of collaboration in transaction finance, echoing this year’s Sibos theme

North America demonstrated the highest overall strength, followed by Asia Pacific and the Middle East, with all banks in the ranking averaging decline in return on assets from 0.76% to 0.74%, and improved gross non-performing loan ratio from 1.8% to 1.65%