Next Banking Summit 2026

Reception at Clinker, Backfabrik

Setting the stage: why the next 18 months lock in Europe's financial architecture

Agentic AI has crossed the line from suggestion to action — and it is reshaping more than transactions. It changes how customers discover products, how advice gets delivered, how operations run inside the bank, and how new players enter the market.

This panel asks the operators where agentic is already creating measurable value, what shifts when software starts acting on its own across the customer journey, and what it takes to scale that across fragmented European markets.

Backfabrik Piazza

The gap between strategy and execution is almost always infrastructure. The banks that solve this now will define who owns the customer relationship for the next decade.

Embedded finance is moving more than half of consumer transactions outside the traditional banking interface. AI agents are deciding where the money goes before a bank ever sees it.

The panel asks who actually sits at the top of the stack next — the licence-holder, the cloud provider, the platform, or the agent — and what European sovereignty means when the decisioning layer is no longer European.

Backfabrik Piazza

FiDA is delayed, contested, or — in some readings — optional. Meanwhile, access to wealth and account data is already there, finfluencers and AI are already advising users, and customers expect real-time portability now.

The panel asks what Open Finance actually looks like when market reality outpaces the regulatory framework — and what happens to banks that wait.

Overview of the afternoon masterclasses taking place at partner offices and the HoFT campus.

What the morning actually answered — and what got handed to the afternoon.

Lunch in the Piazza. Most side conversations start here. Some continue long after the sessions end.

Backfabrik Piazza

Backfabrik Piazza

Because the people deciding how Europe’s financial infrastructure gets rebuilt over the next decade will be in one room, for one day, and you’ll be in conversations with them — not just listening to them. The HoFT network convenes twice a year; this is one of those days. If you’re building, regulating, financing, or scaling that infrastructure, the room is worth your time. If you’re not, it probably isn’t.

Berlin. The full day takes place across HoFT’s Backfabrik campus at Saarbrücker Str. 36 — main-stage sessions in the central venue, afternoon masterclasses hosted inside the offices of member companies on the same campus, and the Campus Festival in the courtyard from 18:00. Walking distance between everything; you won’t need a taxi between sessions.

The NBS will be held exclusively on-site at Clinker in Berlin.  The format is built around the conversations between sessions, which don’t translate to a stream. There’s no recording or virtual track.

Three questions frame the day: who controls the financial stack, where the BaaS consolidation wave lands, and what changes when AI moves from assistant to operator. Morning keynotes and panels set the strategic frame. Afternoon masterclasses go deeper on Embedded Finance, AML, Platform Sovereignty, Scalable Infrastructure, and Agentic Payments. Full program above.

Get in touch with us via summit@hoft.berlin to express your interest in speaking, sponsoring, or partnering with the event team. Speaker slots are mostly set; sponsorship and partnership conversations are open until late May.

The full day — keynotes, panels, your choice of two afternoon masterclasses, access to the Campus Festival in the evening, with food & drinks included. No upsells, no add-ons. Please note: access to the evening Campus Festival requires a separate registration. Please secure your spot here.

Membership is how the HoFT network is built and maintained year-round —the curation, the introductions, the working groups, the research.

Members earn their seat at flagships through that work. Opening the room to non-members keeps the perimeter porous, which is healthy. Charging a contribution keeps it considered: people in the room have decided to be there. The fee covers a fraction of the day’s actual cost; the rest is carried by the network.

Interested in becoming a member? This might be the right moment — fill out the form here.

Yes. The Campus Festival is open to the wider Berlin banking and fintech community by separate registration on Lu.ma — approval-based, no Summit ticket required. The Summit and the Festival are two doors into the same courtyard.