22nd Edition Connected Banking Summit – Innovation & Excellence Awards 2025: Where Traditional Finance Finally Gets a Tech Upgrade

Banking's annual innovation showcase returns—and this time, they're actually talking about real disruption instead of just digitizing paper forms.

The 22nd iteration kicks off with more blockchain panels than ever before, proving even legacy institutions feel the FOMO when crypto hits new ATHs.

What's different this year? Banking leaders aren't just paying lip service to DeFi—they're scrambling to integrate before stablecoins bypass their entire revenue model.

Expect heated debates on CBDCs versus decentralized alternatives, plus the usual parade of fintech 'solutions' that'll get acquired and shelved by next quarter.

One veteran banker muttered: 'We used to award excellence for reducing settlement times by 0.2 seconds. Now we're just trying to avoid becoming irrelevant.'

Final thought: If awards for 'innovation' in banking were actually effective, we wouldn't need 22 editions to still be fixing the same problems—but hey, at least the open bar accepts crypto payments this time.