Following our Networking Breakfast sponsored by Alrajhi Capital, Our conference co-chair Stefan Kaiser led the proceedings on day 3, thanking our +50 sponsors for their broad industry coverage and highlighting record attendance at Tuesday’s Beneficial Owners breakfast and the successful ISLA Connects lunch for junior talent and new entrants to the industry.
Jose Brandao de Brito, Portugal’s Deputy Finance Minister and Secretary of State for the Budget, set the scene from a Portuguese perspective with his opening keynote:
- Portugal and the Savings & Investment Union (SIU) as a Competitiveness Driver: Tying the SIU directly to Portugal’s needs, framing deeper EU capital markets as a way to broaden funding sources, lower costs, and support the country’s convergence and long-term growth.
- European Integration with Practical Impact: Capital markets reform is not just a Brussels concept; for Portugal, it means better access to long-term capital, stronger liquidity, and improved support for productive investment and business expansion.
- Europe’s Competitive Reset: Europe needs proportionate, predictable regulation and stronger integration if it wants to compete more effectively with other blocs and attract capital into productive investment.
- The Digital Shift: Tokenisation, DLT, and the wider digital market infrastructure agenda could materially improve settlement speed, transparency, and operational efficiency, but only if Europe can scale adoption beyond pilot-stage fragmentation.
Leaders’ Perspectives & Predictions
Next we looked to our industry leaders who see these dynamics in action to provide their data-backed perspectives and predictions:
- A Market in Expansion: With broad-based growth across regions, asset classes, and client segments, market activity is stronger than it has been in years despite macroeconomic and geopolitical headwinds.
- Broader Participation and More Sophisticated Demand: More beneficial owners, hedge funds, sovereigns, pension funds, and other investors are engaging directly, widening participation and improving liquidity. Investors want their assets to work harder, creating demand for more customised, outcome-led solutions rather than standardised structures.
- New Structures, New Complexity: Progressing to blended and more flexible financing models, combining tools such as agency lending, TRS, collateral solutions, and synthetic or physical workflows. Flexibility is creating new opportunities, but also raises operational, legal, and risk-management complexity, especially when multiple structures are combined in one programme.
- Regulation, Regional Growth, and the Next Phase: Regulatory change, settlement reform, and market-structure evolution are pushing the industry toward more solution-oriented thinking and opening up new opportunities. The future looks to be shaped by local expertise, scalable infrastructure, and the ability to adapt quickly!
ISLA 33rd Annual Securities Finance & Collateral Management Conference – LISBON PORTUGAL
No conference would be complete without a view on AI and it was great to welcome David Rowan as our second keynote to kick off the afternoon session.
With a storied career in technology from journalist, author and investor, David guided delegates through the far reaching, current day application of AI across everything from finance, automotives, and fashion. A clear takeaway was that the winners will be firms that move fast, unlearn outdated assumptions, and build cultures that welcome experimentation and cognitive diversity.
The Liquidity Revolution: Wallets, Tokens, & Global Access
Building on this, we shifted focus to the digital revolution in securities finance:
- From Pilots to Production: Tokenisation is moving beyond experimentation and into real market use, driven by clearer regulation in the US and growing momentum in the UK and Europe. The market is shifting from isolated proofs of concept to scalable infrastructure with genuine commercial utility.
- Interoperability & Market Access: “Walled gardens” will not be enough in a digital asset world, because assets will need to move across platforms, chains, and jurisdictions. Interoperability, common standards, and cross-platform connectivity were framed as essential to avoiding fragmentation and unlocking broader adoption.
- Risk, Governance & Readiness: Automation and tokenised settlement still need human oversight, circuit breakers, and strong risk controls. While the industry is closer to practical adoption than many realise, broader readiness across regulation, infrastructure, and operating models is still required.
The Capital Efficiency Mandate: Pledge, Clearing, & the New Basel Reality
13 years in the making, and on the eve of the Basel III US consultation deadline, our next panel worked through the toolkit for capital efficiency:
- Capital Rules Are Being Recalibrated: There has been a shift toward standardised approaches that still capture diversification, correlations, and counterparty quality more effectively than before.
- Multiple Tools, One Goal: Central clearing, pledge structures, cross product netting, fund ratings, smart bucketing and asset segregation all offer the market the mechanisms needed to safeguard their competitive positioning and manage capital constraints more efficiently.
- Keep Pushing for Clarity: The reform agenda is still evolving, but the industry should stay engaged, prepare for implementation, and focus on building scalable solutions for the next phase.
The panel coincided with the release of ISLA’S Basel III: Toolkit for Securities Finance Paper. Co-authored with Capital Credit Ratings, this paper serves as the 2026 update to our 2023 report and provides a comprehensive analysis of the Basel framework, as well as a review of the evolving securities finance capital efficiency toolkit. Read it here: Basel III – The Securities Financing Market Toolkit – ISLA
The evening closed with our Wednesday Networking Reception sponsored by Abn-Amro Clearing, BNP Paribas, Deutsche Bank, Nomura and Standard Chartered.
Thank you to all of our Wednesday speakers and panellists.
Welcome Remarks & Recap: Speaker: Stefan Kaiser (BlackRock)
Opening Keynote Address: Speaker: José Maria Brandão de Brito (Portuguese Ministry of Finance)
Leaders’ Perspectives & Predictions: Moderator: Brooke Gillman (eSecLending) Speakers: Harpreet Bains (J.P. Morgan), Matt Brunette (Norges Bank Investment Management), Matt Collins (Morgan Stanley), and Gesa Johannsen (BNY)
Keynote Address: Speaker: David Rowan (Technology Columnist & Author)
The Liquidity Revolution: Wallets, Tokens, & Global Access: Moderator: Seha Islam (EY) Speakers: Yalini Isweran (DTCC Digital Assets), James Pollock (Digital Asset), Marton Szigeti (Clearstream), and Diego Zuluaga (Goldman Sachs)
The Capital Efficiency Mandate: Pledge, Clearing, & the New Basel Reality: Moderator: Mark Faulkner (Credit Benchmark) Speakers: Christian Dale (Barclays), Frank Falanga (J.P. Morgan), Ismail Ibrahim (Citi), Paul Tagliareni (Morgan Stanley), and Jan Treuren (Cboe Clear Europe)
