The next best thing to techie heaven, Sibos, got underway in Switzerland this week. This is the annual conference, exhibition and networking event organised by the banking communications network SWIFT for the financial industry. This year the conference is in Geneva.Bloggers and tweeters wasted no time in sending through their reports of the first day's highlights.Among the most coherent reports was one from Andrew Neeson, market intelligence manager for VocaLink, who had plenty to say: "Judging by the number of suits on show, Sibos continues to be a focal point for bankers rather than fintech executives, although the latter are clearly front of mind at the various meetings," he reported."An overriding theme was that partnerships with fintechs will be key," Neeson said. "Fintechs will want to work with banks as they are a high revenue, single sale opportunity." He sat in on a presentation by Jose Beltran from French payments processor STET. In highlighting Faster Payments in the UK and other systems around the world, Beltran showed that instant payment solutions had not cannibalised existing credit and debit transfer payments but instead created new areas of growth, accorduing to Neeson.He also pointed out that data showed that, as a 24-7 payments system, 50 per cent of Faster Payments transactions occurred outside the operating hours of other clearing cycles, emphasising the importance of constant availability for the service.Another keen blogger with observations to share from day 1 of Sibos was Nanda Kumar, CEO of SunTec Business Solutions, who had his views published by Finextra. Kumar was not alone in nominating one of the Sibos themes as "Where now for FinTech?"To this he added his observation that 'Three Ds' buzzwords have dominated this year: Digitisation, Disruption, and the newly minted Distributed (Ledger). Among the sessions Kumar attended on was a panel discussion featuring 'traditional' banks, Spain's BBVA and Denmark's Danske Bank. The audience, which he suggested was "mainly traditional bankers", believed digital teams within banks would catch up.During the course of the discussion, the issue of too many banking apps on our phones was dismissed by a major bank, who explained, 'I hope we do not go too far into standardisation of apps, because it is the differences that create innovation. Some of these fintech providers need to fail." There was a hint the major banks may acquire those who survive, Kumar wrote.And since Kumar made his observations, Ferdinando Ametrano, Head of Blockchain and Virtual Currencies at Italian banking group Intesa Sanpaolo, has already tweeted from Sibos that "the next buzzword replacing distributed ledger tech is Internet/Cloud Tamper Resistant Records."