Speakers
Steven Maijoor
Executive Board Member & Chair of Supervision
De Nederlandsche Bank N.V.
Steven Maijoor joined the Executive Board of De Nederlandsche Bank (DNB) on 1 April 2021. As of 1 February 2024 he is also Chair of Supervision. Steven's remit includes supervision of banks, supervison policy and legal services. Furthermore, he is a member of the Supervisory Board of the European Central Bank (ECB) and the Board of Supervisors of the European Banking Authority. He is also a member of the Trustees of the IFRS Foundation.
Before joining DNB's Executive Board, Steven was Chair of the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), from 2011-2021. Between 2004 and 2011 he was a managing director at the Dutch Authority for the Financial Markets (AFM). Prior to that he was Professor (1994-2004) and Dean (2001-2004) at the School of Business and Economics, Maastricht University.
Steven graduated from the University of Groningen with a degree in business economics and obtained a PhD in the same subject from Maastricht University in 1991.
Steven was born in Hong Kong (1964).
Speaking at SFF 2026
-
3:00–3:30pmThu 19 NovPolicy StageHall 3, Singapore EXPOOpen
Policy Rewiring
Digital Autonomy in AI: Optionality Over Absolute Independence
Policy StageHall 3, Singapore EXPOOpen
-
Prof. Dr. Fritzi Köhler-GeibMember of the Executive BoardDeutsche Bundesbank
-
Dr. Joseph BreedenChief Executive OfficerCALM XAI
-
Steven MaijoorExecutive Board Member & Chair of SupervisionDe Nederlandsche Bank N.V.
-
Sunayna TutejaFormer Chief Innovation OfficerFederal Reserve SystemModerator
About this session
No bank can or should build every AI capability itself. The real strategic question isn't build versus buy; it's whether institutions retain meaningful choice over the technology they depend on. As agentic AI begins making decisions that affect customers, capital, and risk, financial institutions must ask: How much digital dependency is acceptable? Can they trust and explain the decision of models they didn't build? What happens when the AI underpinning critical operations is controlled by a single provider?
The panel explores what digital autonomy should look like in the AI era. Rather than arguing for complete self-sufficiency, the discussion focuses on optionality: the ability to choose between providers, maintain control over sensitive data, satisfy regulatory expectations for explainability, and preserve resilient fallback options when business or technology priorities change. The conversation will examine how banks can adopt AI at scale without sacrificing transparency, governance or strategic independence - and why genuine optionality may become one of the industry's most important competitive advantages. -

