Federal Reserve Governor Christopher Waller addressed the Sibos 2025 conference in Frankfurt on September 29. He presented a vision for the future of payments that integrates artificial intelligence, distributed ledger technology, tokenized assets, smart contracts, and stablecoins.
Waller highlighted the role of agentic AI in automating compliance tasks, such as fraud detection and sanctions screening. He suggested that these autonomous systems could remove current bottlenecks in international transfers by reducing the need for manual reviews.
The governor noted that distributed ledger technology and smart contracts could improve settlement speed and transparency between financial institutions. He emphasized that these tools, alongside stablecoins, should be viewed as complementary components of modern payment infrastructure.
The Federal Reserve is currently researching how these technologies might be integrated into its own systems, including the FedNow service launched in 2023. The central bank is evaluating the potential for interoperability between legacy banking frameworks and tokenized assets.
