Operations at the Center of Capital Markets Transformation

Remarks as Prepared for Delivery at the 2026 Operations Conference & Exhibition

Good morning. It is my pleasure to welcome you again to SIFMA's Operations Conference and Exhibition. Before we begin, I would like to thank our sponsors as well as our exhibitors. I encourage you to visit them in the exhibit hall. On behalf of SIFMA I also extend my thanks to our speakers, and of course to all the attendees. We appreciate the support and participation of everyone in this room.

Before we begin our sessions today, I would like to offer an update on SIFMA's work on the key issues shaping our industry this year including AI, Digital Assets, Treasury Clearing and Extending Trading.

On artificial intelligence, the question is no longer whether these technologies will transform financial operations. We know that answer. Now we should be asking how quickly firms can operationalize and embed the transformation. We are seeing AI move from pilot programs into the infrastructure that powers daily workflows. Agentic AI systems are now capable of managing multi-step processes rather than performing a single automated task, and can orchestrate entire processes across data sources, systems, and decision points.

The promise is real. So is the responsibility. As firms embed these agents as core infrastructure, the focus must turn to disciplined measurement. We have to track not just adoption but actual efficiency lifts, anomaly detection rates, and risk reduction. And governance cannot be an afterthought. Operations leaders who get that balance right will pull ahead. Those who don't will face new vulnerabilities in an increasingly automated environment.

In the digital assets space, stablecoins and tokenized assets, once considered experimental, are increasingly viewed as building blocks for next-generation financial infrastructure. For operations teams, this is not an abstract shift. Tokenized assets and blockchain-based settlement systems could support near-instantaneous clearing, programmable collateral, and 24/7 markets. These capabilities will increasingly intersect with existing post-trade infrastructure. That intersection is where much of our work lies.

It also raises important questions about the regulation of new infrastructure emerging around digital assets. SIFMA has been clear that as blockchain wallets evolve from simple key-management tools into platforms that increasingly resemble brokerage functions, a functional-based regulatory framework is needed. We advocate for a framework which distinguishes wallet types and ensures investor protection while supporting innovation. Our position is straightforward: wallet providers that perform activities resembling brokerage functions should be regulated by the SEC in the same manner as broker/dealers. The technology should not determine the regulatory treatment-the function should.

Moving on to Treasury clearing, where SIFMA has been taking an industry lead on implementation, the deadlines are real and coming up fast, the complexity is significant, and the operations community in this room will be central to making it work. This is one of the most consequential infrastructure changes our industry has undertaken, and it will require coordination across every corner of the capital markets ecosystem.

Finally, as we look at extended trading hours, we see overnight trading growing, but activity remains highly concentrated and exhibits materially different liquidity and volatility characteristics than core trading hours. While retail demand is strengthening, institutional participation remains limited.

SIFMA hosted an extended trading hours roundtable bringing together regulators, market makers, buy-side and sell-side participants, exchanges, and alternative trading systems to examine the operational, technological, and regulatory changes needed as the industry moves in this direction. The consensus among participants was not whether 24/7 trading will emerge, but when. Getting there will require the industry to align on collateral and margin posting, volatility management, corporate actions processing, and trade reporting. And of course operations professionals will be at the center of all of it.

What ties all of this together is, of course, all of you. The operations community is not just the back office. It is the foundation on which markets run. The conversations we have this week, the relationships we build, and the ideas we take back to our firms will shape the next chapter of that foundation.

So, let's begin. Here to talk more about the market and operations is Ron Kruszewski, Chairman and CEO of Stifel and the Chair of SIFMA's Board of Directors. Please join me in welcoming Ron to the stage.