Key Takeaways from FDX Global Summit 2026 with Chris Michael

The FDX Global Summit brought together some of the sharpest minds in open finance this year, including our very own Co-Founder and CEO Chris Michael. One theme stood out above all others: digital assets and their relationship to open finance standards.

Here’s what Chris observed at the summit, in his own words.

Banks are already moving on digital assets

The shift is already underway. Chris noted that, “Many banks, in the U.S. and globally, are starting to include both tokenized deposits and stablecoins products, since there are very significant benefits for their customers.” This isn’t a distant trend. Financial institutions are responding to where their customers actually are.

Customers are holding real wealth in digital asset

The case for including digital assets in financial planning isn’t theoretical. It’s practical, and it’s urgent: “More and more customers are holding a significant portion of their assets in these now, and there are clear use cases for including these as part of a customer’s credit assessment when applying for a loan or mortgage and in their financial planning to help with overall wealth management.”

Credit assessments and wealth management that ignore digital asset holdings are working with an incomplete picture. That’s a problem for customers, and for financial institutions that want to serve them well.

Open finance should cover this. Right now, it doesn’t.

This is where the gap becomes obvious: “Open finance can help unlock both of these use cases. However, none of the major open finance standards globally currently cater for digital assets, neither as a read API (to allow the customer to share data in real time) nor as a write API (to allow the customer to move money to/from these assets).”

No read APIs. No write APIs. The infrastructure to support these use cases within open finance simply doesn’t exist yet.

The technical challenges are real, but solvable

There are obstacles to building it, but they shouldn’t be treated as blockers: “There are some technical challenges, especially related to: the lack of standardisation of data models across different asset types, and gaining access to encrypted data when stored in a public blockchain. But both are solvable.”

This is an important framing. The problems are specific, and specificity is what makes them addressable.

This requires global collaboration, not a closed room

Building a standard that works will take more than FDX alone. “To create an open finance standard for digital assets will require collaboration with global providers who may not be FDX members. While FDX will be a key player in this space, the standard may be best developed in conjunction with other standards bodies who are also looking at this globally and/or specifically in other markets.”

No single body can own this. The more important goal is getting it right, which means bringing the right people to the table, wherever they are.

Some markets are already ahead

Geography matters here. Regulatory environment matters. “Markets such as the UAE, have dedicated regulators for digital assets, and may be moving more quickly to extend open finance in this direction.”

This is worth watching closely. Early movers in markets like the UAE will shape what good looks like for everyone else.

The big picture: global standards, not market-by-market patchwork

Chris’s closing thought from the summit is the one that matters most for the industry to hear:

“Extending open finance standards to cover digital assets and stablecoins will deliver real benefit for end customers as well as the FS sector as a whole. But we will be missing a trick if we don’t approach this with a global view, rather than developing different standards in each market.”

Fragmentation is the enemy of interoperability. If the financial sector arrives at this inflection point and produces a dozen competing regional standards, the potential of open finance for digital assets will be significantly reduced. The window to get this right, together, is now.

Watch the full video

Want to catch up on the full panel that Chris spoke on at the FDX Global Summit? Watch below: