Who will hold value in an AI payments economy?

Finextra will host an online webinar ahead of Sibos that brings together payments and treasury experts to examine how AI, instant and cross-border payments, tokenisation and open APIs are changing where value sits in the financial system. The session will focus on practical implications for corporate treasuries and financial institutions.

The panel includes Deepa Sinha, SVP and Head of Payments and Financial Crimes at BAFT; Ed Barrie, co‑founder and chief product officer at Treasury 4, Inc; and Suzhen Zheng, senior product manager for global payments solutions at HSBC. Scott Hamilton, global payments and liquidity expert, will moderate the discussion.

Speakers will address the arrival of instant rails and how faster payment speed affects transaction choice, liquidity management and cash controls. Presentations will compare practices in the US, where many treasury teams treat instant payments as a limited channel, with the UK and Europe, where faster payments are more often embedded in routine operations and can carry richer remittance information.

The webinar will examine cross‑border payments and efforts to improve interoperability between networks, consortia and national systems. Panelists will review where better routing, messaging and commercial partnerships can reduce cost and shorten settlement times for corporate flows, and where legacy systems and differing regulations continue to create friction.

Technology topics include application programming interfaces and artificial intelligence. APIs provide treasuries with direct access to real‑time account and payment data that supports faster reconciliation and near‑instant decision making. AI is being applied to forecasting, liquidity planning and risk management, and treasury teams are testing intelligent automation and predictive analytics to turn data into operational forecasts.

Panelists will discuss tokenisation and programmable money as new layers in digital finance. The conversation will cover possible uses for tokenised assets and programmable payment structures and how those tools could alter settlement processes, custody arrangements and contractual automation among corporates, banks and fintechs.

Risk and control will be core themes. Topics listed for discussion include operational resilience, cybersecurity, fraud prevention, third‑party risk and supply chain disruption, which have risen on board agendas. The speakers will address how treasury teams can provide visibility and governance for continuous payment flows while systems and services change.

Governance of AI and other data‑driven tools will receive attention, with planned discussion on accountability frameworks, model validation and system resilience. The panel will consider how governance, technology and risk management can support auditable and compliant financial decision‑making.

The webinar will conclude with practical steps for treasury teams, such as updating processes to track instant flows, integrating API feeds for real‑time visibility, and assessing when tokenisation or programmable payments are appropriate for specific cross‑border use cases.