The Banking Scene Director's Cut

We love to talk about technology developments and opportunities, but what often remains underexposed is the more difficult question: how do these innovations translate into something meaningful, usable, and trusted by customers?

The final session at The Banking Scene Conference 2026 Amsterdam: “From Complexity to Clarity: How Banks Help Customers Keep Pace with Change”, was refreshing, because after an entire day talking about AI, Agentic AI, Fraud, Identity, Tokenised Assets and Digital Currencies, we tried to get a grip on a growing level of complexity in a panel moderated by Rik, with guests Ellen Van Acker, Chief Operating Officer for Client and Digital Services of ING Wholesale Banking, Laura Robertson, Head of Partnerships at Wise Platform and Erin Taylor, Partner at Finthropology.

You can read the summary article on our website here.

The Benelux financial sector faces a decisive moment. Instant payments have become ubiquitous, Verification of Payee is fully operational, and a new generation of scams is being industrialised through artificial intelligence. Fraud is no longer defined merely by technical vulnerabilities, but by behavioural manipulation, identity trust gaps, cross-border information asymmetries, and the criminal weaponisation of payment speed.

We provided an early preview of our latest white paper, "Fraud Prevention in a Real-Time Economy," in this webinar, where Rik and Andrew discussed the strategic shift required to combat modern financial crime.

You can download the full white paper here.

Based on the conversations sparked by our recent quiz show on Agentic AI in Banking, and further conversations at our recent event in Amsterdam, it's clear that while we might use the same words, we are not all aligned on the definition of Agentic AI.

We reflect on a definition provided by Peter van Hees, best-selling author of "AI Agents: They Act, You Orchestrate", during his keynote in Amsterdam and we also explore a few things that stood out for us from the quiz show.

You can read the summary article on our website here.

We recently convened a round-table dinner with banking professionals in Belgium, on "Trust under quantum pressure", where we discussed the urgency (or not) for banks to implement "quantum safe" cryptography.

In this episode, Rik and Andrew reflect on some of the more surprising aspects of the dinner discussions, during which Andrew shows his age by "being there" for the Y2K bug preparations (while Rik admits he was probably sitting at home, not old enough to join the millennium parties 🫣).

You can find the summary article referred to on our website here.

Tokenisation, digital assets, stablecoins, new rails - these are no longer POC's, they are in production and gaining traction fast! Doing nothing, waiting, is no longer an option and the big question is what will banks need to do to remain relevant in this new reality?

Rik and Andrew reflect on recent sessions at our event in Luxembourg, with added insights from Roel Van Noten, Associate Partner at Avantage Capital Markets, included in the second half of the episode.

You can find the blog referred to on our website here.

“Relevance” is one of those deceptively simple words that everyone uses, but few define in the same way. At The Banking Scene Conference Luxembourg, the panel “Rethinking Relevance in a New Wave of Digital Banking” treated relevance as something dynamic rather than a fixed brand attribute, and we explored what it takes for banks to remain meaningful in customers’ lives as technology accelerates, fraud evolves, and expectations keep shifting.

The panel, moderated by Andrew Vorster, Head of Growth at The Banking scene, consisted of:*

• Claire Lubnau, Head of Commercial and Digital Solutions at Banque Raiffeisen
• Arnaud Clément, Head of Payments and Innovation at ABBL
• Josef Dvořák, Director of Artificial Intelligence at Finshape

In the second half of this episode, we caught up with Arnaud to also get his reflections on the panel.

You can read a summary of the key takeaways on our website here:https://thebankingscene.com/opinions/rethinking-relevance-in-a-new-wave-of-digital-banking/

Continuing with our "Fraud Files" series as part of our research for our fraud white paper, we sat down with Remy Knecht, Head of Anti-Fraud Services at Isabel, for a deep dive into current and future fraud-fighting techniques.

From his position in a multi-bank ecosystem that processes around €2.3 trillion a year for some 50,000 companies across around 2,000 banks, Remy has a wide-angle view of how fraud is evolving in the Benelux region, and where banks need to adjust their approach if they want to shift from simply responding to incidents to building real fraud intelligence.

You can find a summary of the conversation on our website here.

In this interview with of Frédéric Lebeau, Founder of Datavillage.ai we dig into the way #fraudsters and #scammers are adapting to changes in #banking and financial services and hear his advice on the steps that fraud fighters need to take in order to keep up - including where and how #ai can help with #fraudfighting

If you prefer to read a quick summary of the interview, you can find it on our website here.

Following Rik's recent presentation in Luxembourg, Andrew questions Rik about the conversations he is having today about his book, exploring the same idea from the outside in: relevance, trust, and judgment under pressure.

It is the same story as Rik originally told in his book, but seen from a different angle.

You can read the blog referred to in this video on our website here.

In the first of our "Fraud Files" series, we follow up with Jorij Abraham, Managing Director of the Global Anti-Scam Alliance (GASA) with questions we ran out of time to cover during our recent webinar where he presented a Benelux focused view of the Global State of Scams.

Jorij will be delivering a keynote at our flagship conference in Brussels on May 28 - secure your seat today to join in the conversations on our Fraud and Compliance stage https://thebankingscene.com/events/tbsconfbxl/

You can also find a summary of the interview on our website here.