Is This The Last European SIBOS As We Know It?

The registration numbers have been issued this morning and show about 2,000 delegates from Asia and the Americas. The remainder of the nearly 7,000 delegates are from EMEA.

Nothing new in these statistics, but with the pressure on costs and the wide diversity of subject matter at SIBOS will the next couple of years when the show goes through the Americas and Asia change the dynamics of the conference/exhibition and will the Europeans show up in appropriate numbers or will the European market look for alternatives?

For many recent years, SIBOS in the Payments sector has been dominated by matters European (the Euro, TARGET2, SEPA, PSD etc) are the Europeans not better served by the likes of the Finextra/EBA Payments type conferences?

Last year saw the cancellation of the famous Thursday Party (or should that be the 'infamous'?) and the scaling down for a 'networking' event this year - another cost adjustment that for the outside world perceives SIBOS to be a big shindig for those lucky enough to attend and a further waste on taxpayers bailout money (whether or not this is the case for said institution is another matter - said journalists rarely concentrate on truth rather hype).

As the SIBOS roadshow moves away from Europe after Amsterdam in 3 weeks time how will SIBOS attendance change in the next few years and will delegates voting with their feet determine that the current model has to change radically.