For years, I have been talking about transformation within our industry, one wave of change after the other. We have seen the rise of the internet, the migration from physical branches to digital screens, and the slow evolution of regulatory frameworks. We have heard the discussions on mobile, hyperpersonalisation, blockchain, crypto and Open Finance. We faced the challenge of slower-moving customers, fraud victims and digital inclusion.

However, a recent conversation with Dharmesh Mistry, a veteran with forty years of experience at the bleeding edge of banking technology, confirmed to me a risk I have been seeing for a while now: the industry, and perhaps society at large, is currently facing a combination of tech evolutions that are not just disruptive but also reinforcing each other in terms of impact.

As we prepare for our flagship conference on May 28 in Brussels, I find myself increasingly reflecting on our theme of “Rethinking Relevance”. In an era where technology is no longer an incremental tool but a fundamental shift in the fabric of value, how does a bank stay meaningful to its customers?

Dharmesh’s research into what he calls "The Quanvergence" provides a startling and ambitious roadmap for this journey, which you will be able to find out more about in his keynote “The Quanvergence: The Next Wave of Banking is Unlike Anything Before It”, on May 28 (if you join us here that is!).

The Myth of Change

It is easy to fall into the trap of believing we have already transformed banking. After all, we no longer require customers to visit a branch for every minor transaction; they can manage their wealth from a smartphone. Yet, as Dharmesh pointed out, the underlying nature of banking has remained remarkably static. We have changed the delivery mechanism, but the core product—the way money is handled and how we interact with customers—remains largely transactional and siloed.

For years, we’ve been talking about transforming the model, but we've rarely seen successful cases that didn’t pivot back to the classical model after unsuccessful attempts to achieve their mission.

The "Quanvergence" suggests that we are moving past this era of digital delivery into an era of deep, structural change driven by four intersecting forces: Quantum computing, the Digital Twin, Agentic AI, and Tokenisation.

The challenge for European banks is that these are often managed as separate pilots or innovation labs. The real value, and the real threat, lies in their overlap. And honestly, I get that: all these waves of change require a deep knowledge, which is so hard to fully capture that it’s only normal to focus on one thing. The industry will need to find a way though, to overcome the barriers between these silos, and Dharmesh explained to me very well why that is.

Building the Digital Twin for Real Hyper Personalisation

We often hear that data is the new oil, but many banks are still only scratching the surface of what they actually know about their clients. Dharmesh’s research identifies five areas of data, beyond purely financial data, that are essential to forming a "Digital Twin": a virtual representation of a customer’s life and needs.

The logic is simple: a bank cannot be relevant if it only understands your bank balance. It needs to understand your health, your energy usage, and your lifestyle goals. This brings us to the problem of the lack of adoption of Open Finance and Open Data at large.

How can a bank convince a customer to share their smartwatch data or their energy consumption? The answer may lie in creating immediate, tangible value by combining these data sets to provide advice that feels human rather than institutional.

From Generative to Agentic AI

Until a year ago, we were full of Generative AI. Today, the only thing we talk about is agentic. I heard the craziest Proofs-of-Concept from people, ranging from a full overview of energy usage through domotica, to building a proprietary indoor cycling platform based on Zwift. These new AI capabilities do not just give you a summary of your spending but actually undertake tasks on your behalf with your permission.

Imagine a world where you do not ask for a loan. Instead, you ask your bank, "How can I afford a car?". The AI, powered by your Digital Twin, might suggest a combination of using savings, taking a small loan, or even cashing in part of a pension. It moves banking from a binary "yes or no" decision to a collaborative dialogue about possibilities. If banks do not provide these tools, third parties with access to the same data certainly will, potentially rendering the traditional bank account a mere utility sitting in the background.

And that is just the bank transforming, but how will you prepare for customers demanding that you deal with their financial services through an agent? That may completely change the rules of the game.

The Quantum Leap in Risk and Opportunity

Next up: the big thing at Febelfin Connect, the annual banking gathering from the Belgian Banking Federation, which took place on April 1. Quantum computing is frequently discussed as a future threat to encryption, but its immediate relevance lies in accelerating AI and scenario modelling. We are already seeing practical experiments. Lloyds Bank, for instance, has successfully used quantum computing for anti-money laundering efforts, identifying money launderers in ways classical computers might miss.

The timeline for quantum readiness is shrinking. We no longer believe we need millions of qubits for every task; Noisy Intermediate-Scale Quantum (NISQ) computing is showing that we can achieve results with much less. For a bank, the ability to model a customer’s life through their Digital Twin using quantum speeds means providing touchpoints and advice at exactly the right moment, long before the customer even realises they have a need. It will help find patterns the human eye could not have imagined.

There is the opportunity.

On the other hand, it will also help build patterns to detect fraud in ways we could not have imagined. Unfortunately, that is an equal reason for banks to get ready, because we are not talking about a 10-year period, but 5-years or maybe less.

Tokenisation and the New Rails of Money

The final pillar is perhaps the most transformative for the European market: the tokenisation of money and assets. Whether through Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs), tokenised deposits, or stablecoins, the way we transact is shifting toward programmable rails.

This allows for the fractionalisation of everything. We already see it today with, for example, art (remember Rubey?), expensive cars, or shares, etc…

As Dharmesh and I discussed, there is a vision where a consumer could even "tokenise their living room" to gain liquidity (something I wrote about on 30 October 2025). Instead of a massive, rigid mortgage or a high-interest personal loan, a customer could sell a fraction of their home's equity instantly to someone else. This level of micro-transactionality is impossible on current banking rails, but on tokenised rails, paying fifty different AI agents fractions of a penny for a complex task becomes a reality.

The Convergence Challenge

The difficulty for those of us working in the industry today is that we are often too busy building the future to actually step back and grasp the whole picture. Managing these technologies in silos is a managed risk; managing their overlap is a "completely different beast".

We may be entering an era where "doing banking" will no longer be a conscious task for the customer. It will be an automated, background process driven by agents, augmented by quantum, and facilitated by tokenised assets. The generation entering the workforce now does not think about "saving for a house" in the same way we did; they think about flexibility, global mobility, and fractional ownership.

Conclusion

The conversation with Dharmesh reaffirmed my belief that the "rethinking relevance" theme is not just a marketing slogan for a conference. It is the defining challenge for our generation of bankers. If we continue to implement AI, Quantum, and Tokenisation in isolation, we will fail to see the shift from transactional banking to life-integrated financial services.

We have the data, the standards are evolving, and the technology is converging. The only question that remains is whether we have the energy and the vision to change banking forever before a more agile competitor does it for us.

Join us on May 28 at The Banking Scene Conference Brussels, where you can meet Dharmesh, along with 50+ industry experts who will be sharing their insights on top-of-mind topics in Banking, Payments and Fraud & Compliance - don't delay, secure your seat here today.

Summaries are great for a quick overview, but there is nothing quite like hearing it straight from the source! Tune in to the full interview with Dharmesh below or follow along on your favourite podcast platform here (and don't forget to subscribe!).