Stablecoin Threats to Banking

Speaker A: What would happen to your organization's interchange if your customers started paying with stablecoins instead of cards on Amazon Prime Day? And what happens to your deposits when customers hold their spending money in a stablecoin balance instead of in checking? You know, the OCC finalized its stablecoin rule last week, and the genius act is supposed to take effect on January 18th, less than three months away. You know, other regulatory work remains, but institutions now have a date to prepare for. That's why we're revisiting one of our most popular interviews recorded in January with Dr. Lamont Black, a former Federal Reserve economist and finance professor at DePaul University. Lamont warns that banks and credit unions could lose 5 to 20% of their interchange in 2027. He explains why lower payment costs could give merchants like Amazon and Walmart a reason to drive that shift. The risk extends to losing the transaction data that your organization uses to understand your customers. Lamont also explains how spending money could move from checking accounts to stablecoin balances. Listen to where Lamont recommends starting and why issuing your own stablecoin may not be your best first move. From Walmart and Amazon to banks and credit unions, stablecoins are accelerating a, uh, banking reset that is already reshaping how payments move. I know in my experience, and as I talk to financial institutions more and more, putting it within their internal systems without really knowing what they're going to do with this. In this episode of Banking Transform, I'm joined by Dr. Lamont Black, Associate professor of Finance at DePaul University. We're going to break down why stablecoins represent a fundamental shift in financial infrastructure, not just another crypto cycle. We're also going to explore how emerging payment rails challenge traditional card networks and what this means for deposit data interchange, revenue and products overall, and how financial institutions of all sizes need to prepare for what's going to come next. This conversation is essential listening for banking executives, payment leaders and fintech professionals who want to understand the real impact of stablecoins, the strategic risks of waiting, and how the banking reset is already unfolding. So, Dr. Black, really good to have you on this show. We were at the same event a few months ago and you really did a great job of presenting a, uh, look at not just stablecoins, but crypto AI and all these powers are really working together to change the banking ecosystem. Before we start, can you talk a little bit about your background and a little bit about how you work with the financial services industry today?

Speaker B: Yeah, thanks, Jim. It's great to be Here. So, um, I'm at DePaul University here in Chicago, like you said. Prior to this, I was an economist with the Federal reserve in Washington D.C. so was there for about eight years through the financial crisis. Moved here in 2013 to teach money in banking. So I spent a lot of time with college students around this stuff. And I like to say that it was my students who got me into crypto. You know, they were the ones who kept asking me about Bitcoin. And, uh, so I would say around 2017 was when I really took a deep dive into this space. And yeah, it's changed a lot over the last nine, uh, or ten years. And over the last few years, I've been doing a lot more speaking and consulting with financial institutions, uh, around crypto and AI and stablecoins in particular. So with the Genius Act, I think that's really accelerated these discussions. And, um, yeah, I think everyone's trying to figure out what this means for the future of payments and, uh, the future of money.

Speaker A: So it's interesting you mentioned the Genius act and it was passed in July of 2025. And most banking executives I talk to still don't have a stablecoin strategy, but they're making sure they have a place for it on their back office ecosystem. What specific operational capabilities should a bank or credit union have built by the end of 2026 to remain competitive?

Speaker B: Yeah, well, with the Genius act, we now have this timeline where the rulemaking has gotta be done by July of this year, 2026, and, uh, implementation will be at the end of the year. So I do think this is the year to pivot and prepare. I don't think anyone needs to sort of rush out of the gate. Um, you know, there's some credit unions and banks that have even issued their own stable coins at this point. Um, I'm not, you know, necessarily recommending that for most smaller institutions, but if people are familiar with the concept of like a crypto wallet. So think of stablecoin as the technology of crypto with the value of the dollar. It's. And so those tokens ultimately live on a blockchain. And a crypto wallet is how you manage an address on a blockchain. And so I would encourage credit unions, banks to start exploring these types of tools because historically they've managed their member and customer money using their core systems. This is going to be using a shared or distributed ledger. And so figuring out how those two ledgers can communicate with one another, their internal general ledger, and, and this distributed, uh, blockchain ledger and a crypto wallet is a great way to start building that interface.

Speaker A: You know, probably around four years ago there was this back and forth on whether or not a, uh, financial institution needs to include crypto as part of their payments. Rails and a lot of organizations got into it and out of it and got into it again. Why do you see this moment with stablecoins being actually more of a true banking reset rather than just another toe in the water experiment?

Speaker B: Yeah, I was very active in those trends three to four years ago and like you said, it was really about crypto, which I would say at that time primarily about Bitcoin. There were a number of institutions that were looking at Coinbase and other crypto exchanges. They were seeing those transactions in their ACH logs of members and customers sending money to, to these crypto exchanges to buy crypto. And so the, the play at the time that some of them considered was could we internalize this? Could we offer Bitcoin directly to our members, you know, try and create that closed loop so it's deposits moving in and out of these, um, crypto accounts. NYDIG was one of the fintechs that was a big provider at that time. Um, you know, and that ultimately did not go so well. A lot of that picked up at the very end of the crypto bull cycle. You know, 2022 is when crypto prices started coming down and then we had FTX and a lot of people just backed out of the space. Ultimately I wasn't super optimistic, optimistic about that to begin with because, you know, most financial institutions are not in the business of asset management. You know, they might have a wealth management division, but a lot of times that's outsourced through some third party like lpl. And so it was never I would consider their core value proposition. What I love about stablecoins as this new trend is this is much closer to the actual functioning of a, uh, community or regional financial institution. So think about payments, think about deposits, the ability to store and transfer value. You know, that's core to what financial institutions should be doing. And I think stablecoins could disrupt or upend a lot of those current systems in a, in a really beneficial way because I, I think this is better technology and so I want to encourage these institutions to start understanding it so that they can pivot and prepare.

Speaker A: So you write a lot about stablecoin and innovation with filing and a lot for the credit union organizations. Where does this, where do stablecoins fall with regard to simply being an innovation, to being A real core infrastructure play.

Speaker B: Yeah, I think that's still a debate. I gave a, uh, stablecoin presentation for 60 CEOs on Friday, primarily credit unions. And I had them do tabletop discussions there in the room about. And the first question was, you know, is this going to be a significant disruption? And there was a pretty even split, I would say in the room of those who see this as like a curiosity, but they're just going to wait and see and see if this gains traction. And about the other 50% saying, hey, this is here, things are moving very quickly, we need to get on the train. So, um, you know, no one has a crystal ball. I personally believe that this is going to be transformative. So if you think about traditional payment systems today, whether that's ach, card networks, wires, internationally, like with Swift, you know, all of those systems date back to like the 70s and 80s. And so they've, they're stable and they have functioned very well and they've served their purpose, but they are not using this frontier, better technology and a blockchain. You know, I know people have wrestled with the use cases. Is this really ever going to take hold? Transferring value on the Internet is really how it was designed from day one. And um, that's where I just, I think stablecoins have that crypto use case where this could become the killer app for blockchain as we uh, move into this next year or two.

Speaker A: Okay. So that being said, actually with any payments, uh, ecosystem there's multiple players, obviously financial institutions within financial institutions and between financial institutions there's the merchant marketplace, you know, the place where we buy things and then there's a consumer. What part of that ecosystem have to really have a high level acceptance for stablecoin to become more than just a novelty?

Speaker B: Yeah, this is where a lot of the CEOs would say, well, when I talk to my members or customers, I'm not hearing much demand for this. I don't think this is going to stop, start as a consumer driven demand cycle. I think it's going to start more on the merchant side. You know, if you think about merchant processing fees through the card networks, some of the larger retailers are already saying that they're going to issue their own stablecoin as a way to sidestep those card networks and those processing fees. So you know, to the extent that they start incentivizing stablecoins as an alternative payment rail, uh, giving their consumers an option and getting them to shift in that direction like an Amazon or Walmart, I think then the consumer demand will come around. So if you think about like card versus cash today, cash is very inconvenient and so people are willing to pay that 3% for electronic payments. But if we have a digital form of cash, which is what stake stablecoins are, then that convenience factor goes away and it's just going to be a pure price uh, comparison. So you know, stablecoins are not going to have a zero transaction fee but I would anticipate it being closer to 1%. And I think ultimately that's that pricing differential is where we're going to see the shift in demand.

Speaker A: So actually what you see is the, the merchant actually driving the consumer's change in behavior, maybe through discounts or maybe through rewards or something like that. So walk me through a real scenario. I'm a consumer at let's say Walmart checkout or at Amazon at the point where I'm about to push the button. What would happen differently in my payments experience versus me using my debit card today?

Speaker B: Yeah, well I'll give you a first example and then we'll take it from there. So for instance, if you think about E commerce and Amazon is a great example of this. You know the 1990s it was PayPal that really introduced the idea of spending money on the Internet using a credit card. The PayPal checkout. What people I think have not fully uh, acknowledged yet is that PayPal now has their own stablecoin P yUSD. They are embedding that directly into PayPal checkout. So more and more as people are, you know, shopping on Amazon, Maybe using a PayPal checkout, I think they will start considering, considering these stable coins as an option, especially if there is any type of discount offered on that. And as I said, the genius act opens the possibility for non financial issuers of stablecoins. And so I think Amazon likely issuing its own coin. What I would anticipate is something almost like a gift card where there would likely be some type of ach transaction where they would move some of their funds over into the coin. Kind of like a, you know, a little um, liquidity pool that they can then spend as those needs uh, come up. They want to, you know, buy something with the click of the button. So it's just sort of shifting that real time transaction away from using my card to using a coin. The question is how do you fund the coin? So, so there will likely still be some sort of uh, transaction prior to that. But uh, the beauty of a stable coin is that it is redeemable for Cash. And so unlike gift cards where it's sort of more of a one way street, I think this creates that two way flow where we're going to see a lot more uh, what I would call like sweep accounts moving in and out of like a checking account into a stablecoin account so that it's ready and accessible when they need it.

Speaker A: So it's interesting. So as I relate to this and kind of draw a comparison to instant payments, it's one of these things that it may take a while for it to gain momentum, but the momentum could ramp up very quickly as the consumer starts to understand the benefits, understands the whole rail system. But so much of this, the back office rails are gonna look similar to what they are today and it's, you know, by the name stablecoin compared to crypto. As long as people don't misinterpret what these mean and the fact that it's just a digital payment mechanism, it all makes sense. So when you look at the payment system overall, what part of the value chain is the most vulnerable? As stablecoins kind of mature.

Speaker B: Yeah, my focus has been on the card networks. Um, you know, I think some of them are not a huge fan of the comments that I've been making, but I think this could totally upend the interchange fees for these financial institutions. If you think about like issuing banks, processing banks, merchant banks, you know, there are a lot of benefits that have been provided over the years. You know, fraud, chargebacks, you know they, they certainly have the reasons for that 3% surcharge. But um, you know, the beauty of blockchain in my mind is that instead of just communicating between ledgers, we now have a shared ledger. So you know, the card network, Swift, all, ach, all of them are really just messaging systems for communicating between these core systems. And that's why we have so much settlement, clearing and reconciliation. You know, there's a lengthy process to make sure everything lines up at the end of the day. And the beauty of blockchain is because we have this consensus mechanism where we can now agree on these transactions that are being added to, to the shared ledger. That's where you get the efficiency play. So um, yeah, I would encourage every financial institution to be asking themselves, hey, if this replaces or not replaces, if this starts to create an alternative, let's put it that way, to the card network, what might that mean for that institution? So one example I've used with some of my clients is think about Amazon Prime Day, look at your transaction records to see how many of your members or customers are using your card on prime day, how much interchange fees are you collecting from that big, uh, sales cycle from the Amazon side? It's not going to like sink the institution, but it is significant or material for many of them. And if that number starts going to zero and their members or customers start transitioning towards Amazon Coin away from using the issuer card, that's going to have some material impact. And so just starting to think through that as a scenario and then as you started this session thinking about what is our strategy to try and future proof ourselves so that we're not trying to play catch up or defense in 2027 or 2028. The more you can get ahead of this, the better prepared you are for that strategic risk.

Speaker A: So that said, and I know you talk to a lot of credit unions and smaller community banks when you talk about the interchange revenue threat. If I'm a community bank with $2 billion in assets, what, on a percentage base, I know you can't come up with an exact number, but what do you think the risk level is? I mean, how much of the interchange could get lost in what I'm going to call the near term. And that's nebulous in its own terminology. But, uh, Amy, what, what kind of impact we talking about? We talking about going to zero interchange? Are we talking about 50% of the interchange? What, what level do you in your gut feel this is really viable? And I, I, I, I feel pretty comfortable in saying this could be your, your level of risk.

Speaker B: Yeah, uh, it's really about the timeline and sort of when this shift happens. So I would say, you know, it's not going to be primarily 2026, it's going to be 2027 once the genius act goes into effect, and it's not going to be overnight. You know, it could be 5, 10, 20%, um, in 2027. But even that I would say is significant. And then I think with a lot of technology adoption, it's not linear, it is exponential. So it tends to start slow. And then once it catches on, that's when you get that hockey stick effect. You know, think about Apple pay, Samsung pay, you know, when those were rolled out, no one was like, oh, this is going to replace everything. You know, it's just people have to get comfortable with it, they have to trust it. And stable coins are going to be new. People aren't going to be sure about this. And so, yeah, I don't think this is like a looming cliff. It's more something that is going to ramp up very quickly. And so when I think about institutions preparing for that, I like to use the analogy of surfing, of like, hey, there is a wave coming and you want to just position yourself so that as it starts building you're ready to ride that wave and it's not just crashing over your head. I, um, you know, part of that analogy too is there is both risk and opportunity. There is, you know, some of these executives I'm talking to, they're like, hey, like what is the upside here? All I'm seeing is the downside. And if you think about this as non interest income, some of that is going to go away. Interchange fees have been a cash cow for these institutions for decades now. But in my mind it's like what are those services that they are going to offer on the stablecoin networks, whether that's chargebacks or other types of features that you want to kind of build that trust into this new payment rail so that your members and customers stay with you rather than going to some third party fintech provider.

Speaker A: You know, that's interesting, the revenue side of that, but also how can be built into other products, uh, such as loan products and other products as well. It's going to be interesting because I think to your point, I'll take the surfing analogy as well. If you don't haven't even bought a surfboard, you are not going to be prepared for when that wave comes. If you have not practiced a bit and got a sense for the water and gotten on the board a couple times, maybe without a wave you won't be prepared for when the wave comes. And I think we're seeing this and I'm going to keep on referring back to, you know, instant payments and instant, you know, the overall scenario that happened there, that it was nothing, then it was something and now people are asking for it and understanding how it can change their daily flow of funds and it's a big deal. Um, when you're looking at this, I would imagine that the biggest mistake a banking leader could make is doing nothing then. Correct?

Speaker B: Yeah, I would think of it as like hedging. We tend to think of hedging as relates to financial risk. Hedging also applies the strategic risk. Like no one knows whether this is going to take off. I could be wrong. Maybe it's not as big as I think it's going to be, but you just don't want to be fully exposed in a sort of wait and see mode. To your point, buy the surfboard, get in the water, start Feeling it out. And then if it doesn't materialize, then maybe you lost some money on that investment, but you didn't end up with that big downside risk. And so it's dipping the toes in the water. Put giving some of that initial work in, in 2026. That's one thing with the, uh, the genius act is I think it gives a fairly clear timeline. So like, you know, now we know this is going to move faster than it would have otherwise. So stable coins. I've been talking to credit unions about stable coins for 40 years now. Everybody was like, oh, Dr. Black, that's nice. Very interesting. It was kind of like a curiosity. A lot of it was just like board education. That was like a three to five year timeline. Now we're talking about a one to two year timeline. So like this is the year 2026 to do some of that prep work.

Speaker A: You know, that's, that's very insightful because when you look at this overall, it's, it's the reality of the situation. And you know, we're talking about different demographic groups, but when you look at the people that have completely accepted Venmo, that have completely accepted PayPal, which have completely accepted digital payments at Amazon and everywhere else, the reality is the movement from where we are today to stablecoins is not that big of a gap anymore. You know, we're there, we kind of understand how it'll work without having to understand exactly the exact way it works in the background. But, you know, institutions also are looking at should they issue stablecoins as opposed to simply enabling them as part of the broader ecosystem. What's your thoughts on that? Is it, uh, totally based on asset size? Is it based on priorities? Is it something that organizations should think about or should completely ignore?

Speaker B: Well, I think it really comes down to their unique situation and how they envision this being used. So, you know, it is not difficult to issue a stablecoin. A stablecoin is really just a smart contract that sits on a blockchain and issues these fungible tokens so you can set that up, um, relatively quickly. There's a number of partners out there that have already started doing this. But the question I always ask is like, okay, if it's a credit union and they're issuing a stablecoin, like, where are their members going to use this stablecoin? Because stablecoins only have value and if you can spend them or transfer them, you know, they're not any. There's no. Especially for a US Citizen who has full deposit Insurance on a checking account. There's no store of value benefit here in the US it's really that medium of exchange benefit. So only to the extent that you're going to use it for like a peer to peer transfer or a merchant point of sale, these are the types of use cases that they want to be exploring. Um, and I just don't see that as being the sort of tip of the spear as it relates to these use cases. So for instance, with the credit unions, what I anticipate is going to be some credit union industry stablecoin, something that would be focused on this industry, their unique needs and interests, something that would have a little bit of branding associated with the credit union movements, but it would be more collaborative and it would be more something that would be offered across these institutions. So you know, I think that's, we're likely going to see that even in 2026 as more and more proposals for like a credit union stablecoin. Um, and so when coming back to your question about experimentation, I feel like some institutions feel like issuance is the way to experiment, but I would say the wallet is, is a better way to experiment because there's a lot of existing stablecoins like USDC is the leading stablecoin here in the U.S. you should be thinking about how do my members and customers interact with usdc? Because today they're probably transferring deposits into Coinbase and buying USDC on Coinbase. If you want to offer that directly, how do you do that? And if you ideally have a mobile app at some point I would envision like their share account that shows some dollar amount and then a stablecoin account that shows some dollar amount side by side and then it becomes seamless for the member or customer to access those funds, move them back and forth. The whole purpose of a stablecoin is one token equals $1. So they should be roughly ambivalent between those two. So it really becomes where can I use it? And, and when is this a more efficient method of payment?

Speaker A: You know, it's interesting stablecoins and any payment mechanism it gets down to are you gonna have the payment rails to actually get the transaction data and customer insight. We talk about personalization, all this, but one of the missing parts about this is not just the loss of interchange, but the potential of losing transaction data and customer insight, which makes it even harder to for a traditional financial institution to build relationships. And you don't know how the consumer is using their data. I know that in my small business account, you know, my financial institution has no idea what I buy or what I sell on an ongoing basis because it's all done through PayPal. I pay all my contractors through PayPal, I get all my subscription data through PayPal and as a result simply they get transaction data about what happens on PayPal but know nothing about the origin of what's being done. Is this a risk that's overstated or is this really the biggest risk on top of interchange that's to be dealt with?

Speaker B: No, I think that's a great point because if you think about data equals insights, the better you understand your member or customer, the better you're going to be able to serve them. You know, some of the credit unions that I work with that are already using some type of uh, third party provider or cuso to manage even the card payments. Sometimes they have a hard time getting that transaction level data to understand who is the counterparty, who are the merchants. Should we be offering different types of incentives for members to make different types of transactions? So on, um, and this is going to shift that relationship even further. So if you think about all the other trends out there, like embedded finance, banking as a service, I would also put on that list now agentic commerce. So, you know, there's more and more discussion around agentic AI. I think a lot of these financial institutions are still thinking of that as like an internal efficiency, kind of like robotic process automation. I don't think they have fully wrapped their heads around consumer agents and how that's going to change the relationship with the primary financial institution. Because, you know, if I'm looking for a loan and I'm using AI to do the shopping for, for me now, I'm not going to your website, I'm not even going to your app. It's all of this is going to be delegated to that agentic model. Doing that on my behalf. And so that's going to widen that gap between the provider and the consumer even further. And so if you think about stablecoins and other things being part of this new model of kind of microtransactions happening on the back end, then it's, you know, do I really need you as an institution or can I do this myself? And so the more you can offer those services directly, lean into that trust factor, you know, that's when I think about the comparative advantage of credit unions and community and regional banks. It is trust. It is that sense of we know you and we have your best interests at heart. You know, this is, you know, it might sound a little squishy in this day and age of modern data analytics. But, you know, one of the risks of shifting into this embedded agentic type finance is, you know, how do I know the offers I'm getting really are the best offers? Am I being kind of guided or coached in a certain direction? And so these institutions are, they are standing saying, hey, we are on your side, we are aligned with you, continue to work with us and we will help you build that better, uh, future together.

Speaker A: So it's interesting. Financial institutions stand to lose interchange, stand to lose, um, transaction and customer insight data. The merchants tend to gain because they can lower their interchange even if they pay out some of it as an incentive for people to move to stablecoin. So when you look at the dynamics there and, oh, and by the way, between the financial institutions, it's who's gonna make the first move to get that transaction data to get that maybe lower value, um, interchange loss? Who's gonna be the first mover? Is it gonna be a JP Morgan, a Bank of America, Wells Fargo? Or is it gonna be Walmart, Amazon or Target? Or is there gonna be a third party such as PayPal? Who's going to move the marketplace to really make this steamroll, this huge boulder that's waiting at the top of the hill start moving?

Speaker B: Yeah, I think it probably starts with the large financial institutions like a JP Morgan. One thing I love about Jamie Dimon is he is all over the place with crypto and blockchain.

Speaker A: You follow his words that have been said over the years, you go, man, this person's all over. But you know what he settles when he's proven wrong is what he really does.

Speaker B: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think he's a good example of, you know, finger to the wind and he's going to follow whichever way it's blowing. And, you know, if people are backing up from crypto, he's going to back up. I think he sees the writing on the wall with stable coins. He's leaning in. So I think we're going to see the big banks moving forward. I already mentioned, like PayPal is already moving in this direction with PyUSD. Stripe now has their own stablecoin. And so all those kind of fintech financial providers I think are already moving into this space. I think, um, the ones like Amazon and Walmart, what's interesting is this traditional distinction between finance and commerce. I think this is going to blur that line even further. As you think about Walmart, for decades has been appealing the FDIC to get a bank charter so that they could internalize these payments. This is opening the door. You don't need a charter now. You can offer payments directly through stablecoins. And so I think they're going to be ready and waiting to take that step. Um, my concern is that all the action's going to happen with these larger players and then the community, regional institutions are going to be kind of caught in the wake of that. And that's just the old playbook for technology adoption. It starts at large scale and trickles down to small scale. So one of my talking points with these institutions, and in particular my clients, is like, small is nimble

Speaker A: in the world of

Speaker B: startups. Like, innovation happens at the small scale, not at the big scale. But for some reason in finance we tend to invert all that and say, you know, I got to have a big shop and a big budget and all that. Again, like Stable Coins, the technology is not that complex. It is really, you know, you're using a public blockchain, you don't have to build your own blockchain, you're just, you know, building applications on an existing blockchain. So it's the same dynamic with AI. Just like, you know, JP Morgan isn't building their own large language model, they're just building applications on top of that. Stablecoins are an application of a public blockchain. And so you don't have to be big to play in this space. I think that's one of the kind of bells that I'm trying to ring out.

Speaker A: Yeah, well, you know, it's interesting because you've seen it, um, over the last five years. I'm going to take the beginning of COVID about where it happened. Probably it was 2019, but the reality is third party solution providers have gotten so good at knowing what their rails are, what they're good at. You have anything you want to do in the financial services business today, you can find a partner to actually collaborate with you and make it so you can play like the big guys, you know, really close to what the, the chase can do, at least on the key elements that consumer's gonna see. Too many financial institutions spend a lot of time in the back office when really some of these front office things have to be looked at. So you have organizations already that can help partner with you to get you into the stablecoin game before it even starts. But let's say you're a credit union executive. You, you've already realized you're listening to, uh, Lamont Black who says you got 18 months before you could be Caught flat footed or in a big wave without any idea of how to ride it as opposed to get swallowed up by it. Give me the playbook. You're, uh, a CEO of a credit union. You're listening to this podcast. In the beginning of 2026, what are the three decisions you have to make now, not 18 months from now, not next year, that you have to make now to get ready to do what you need to do in the stablecoin area or do you have to do anything?

Speaker B: Yeah, I think that's a great question. And um, so let me just put a quick plug in here. So one of the products that we've now developed at my company, Wide Open Ventures, we call a stablecoin cohort, which is an opportunity for cross credit unions in particular. We've also opened it up to community banks to start partnering together on like an exploration journey because it's not just like go it alone, it's also not directly jumping into a partnership. You know, I fully agree with you that partnerships are important. One of my concerns is that some of the fintechs are now seeing this, that fear that's in the kind of the blood in the water and they're saying, hey, there's this big risk, if you don't partner with us, you're going to get left behind. And so then the credit union or bank sort of jumps to implementation without thinking through these key decision points like you were just mentioning. So our stablecoin cohort, it's a three month process, it's education strategy and then thinking about execution. When I think about that roadmap for like a CEO or other executive, I think the education piece is critical. That's at the board level. It's also at the executive level. You don't want to just think of this as hey, what do we need to do now? That's more of a knee jerk reaction. Uh, Ideally with that 18 months, it's a really slow, gradual buildup so that people are understanding what a stablecoin is, how it works, how it's different than traditional fiat payment rails, then I would encourage like organizational alignment. And so some of our clients are starting to develop like an internal working group thinking about who are those key internal stakeholders, maybe somebody from payments, somebody from deposits, somebody from it. Getting them just familiar with this transition so that they become aware that this is arising as an alternative payment rail. And then once you've kind of gone through some of those processes, then you can start thinking about those strategic decision points. We've talked about a couple of Them do you issue or not? Do you facilitate or not? So like, you know, the baseline strategy is we're going to just kind of circle the wagon, do our thing like we've always done it, and just play defense again. That's. That's one viable strategic option. You

Speaker A: know

Speaker B: what? I think that

Speaker A: and probably the best because when we talk to organizations about payments, we talk on this podcast about any major decision. If you don't understand your North Star, you're going to have a. If you're, at best, you're going to have a 50, 50 chance to success. On top of that, unless you've gone through the strategic decisions you have to make, you will pick a partner that's only going to be good at certain elements and not maybe good at what you really, in hindsight, would have said, geez, I wish I did this. This is very much. And I'm going to keep on coming back to instant payments very much. How the instant payment movement started going is the solution was out there. We knew the timeline, we knew what the government regulation was going to say, and organizations got together. In fact, as we go back in history, the smaller organizations really were much more active in understanding what will this all mean and what way do I want to play this? Do I want to become, uh, a payment outbound or inbound or both? And all those decisions were made, but they were able to make them before the partnerships were formed. And I think you bring up a very good case that says don't go blind when you don't know exactly what this is going to be, because there are still questions out there. It's good to be with a group of players that say, here's why I'm going this direction. Then you can determine if that's right. But you're going to get a bias if you pick your partners too soon. And it's good to get the community together that can say, where could this fall? Because tomorrow a revision to the government regulation could easily come out. You know, we've seen this before, or timelines could change, or the marketplace could change on how important certain elements are. But you got to know the risk, as you said, you got to know the rewards. Many organizations have not look at stablecoin as a data and insight source is saying, what happens if we are left behind on that. You already talked about embedded payments and how that impacts that. And the whole demographic group element of saying, know how are different demographic sectors going to be viewing this and how can you make it part of your overall infrastructure? You know, again, lamont it's very important. And your, your point is well taken, that it's not the decisions you're going to make, it's the partnerships you're going to make around how you make those decisions and partnerships with other organizations of like minds or who you aspire to become. And again, you're North Star, so, you know, it's a very interesting dynamic. It's something that we're going to obviously have to talk about again because the, uh, playbook will not be completely written for any institution the next three months. But standing still for the next three months, I can only tell you, as I say in a lot of our podcasts, you're going to be three more months behind, um, the game, because the game's not stopping for you. Lamont, how do people get a hold of you to find out more about how you're getting organizations together to think along the same lines?

Speaker B: Yeah, my website, lamontblaque.com is a great place to learn about me and I've got my contact information there. And I'm also very active on LinkedIn. Feel free to reach out and connect there and, uh, happy to share any services or any support that we can offer. As we've discussed, strategy is important here. And so, uh, we want to help guide some of those conversations.

Speaker A: Well, and go a step further, Lamont, I know you also have a very robust thought pattern around AI, around generative AI, around the genic AI, around crypto, because there's still an element of that to be said. And around blockchain, um, a lot of organizations, I think right now we're all catching up to what we know and what we don't know. We don't want to admit ignorance. And sometimes to grabbing onto a partner that may help you get out of ignorance may not be the right partner based on what you know later. So it's better to get smarter before you start selecting partners. You mentioned. And also, uh, you know, self prompt here. You know, listen to the podcast that we've done a lot on payments. We've done very little on stablecoin. You're our first stablecoin guest, so congratulations on that. For better, for worse, I guess that whole thing plays out also. But I think, you know, you're a great resource. You're, you know, it's great to have students in front of you because they can keep on prompting you on things you may not know, saying, oh, geez, these guys are talking about something that, uh, these guys and girls are talking about things that I didn't know were really out there. You know, you look to the predictive markets and all this, you go, man, it is a crazy world out there. But I think more than anything, we're seeing the biggest change happen in payments. That's not going to change. The reality is the rails are pretty well defined on how you have to define these things. It's just a matter of the way you pay. And we can, we can get into a whole, uh, podcast on the security issues we have to deal with also with stable coins, so. Mhm.