28 May 2026 Scott Anchin of ICBA on Check Fraud, Stablecoins, AI, and watches

Speaker A: Off the rails from the us faster payments council.

Speaker B: Hi, I'm Reed, Lieutenant and CEO of the US Faster Payments Council, and this is off the Rails from the US Faster Payments Council. Today I'm joined by Scott Anchin, SVP at Independent Community Bankers Association. Scott and I talk about the founding of the fpc, the ongoing issues with check fraud, and how community banks are approaching emerging payments technologies. But first, the headlines. The call for Session proposals for the FPC Fall Member Meeting is open. That event will be in Kansas City November 4th through the 6th and bonus opportunity. We'll also be accepting session proposals for the Spring Member Meeting, which will be in March in San Antonio, Texas. Find all that@fasterpaymentscouncil.org of course. And as always, a huge thank you to our Fall Member Meeting sponsors. First, our Platinum Sponsors, ACI Worldwide, North American Banking Company and Visa Direct, and our Gold sponsors, Aloya, bny, Brightwell, De Novo, Treasury, EPAY Resources, Federal Reserve Financial Services, Finsley, MasterCard, Form 3 Plaid, Shazam, the Clearinghouse, PTAP Advisory, Trustly, Validify, Westpay, and Wizia. Thank you all. New Resource Alert I'm, um, thrilled to share that Instant Payments Fraud Dispute Resolution Guiding Principles for the US is now available at fasterpaymentscouncil.org I'm under the Education tab, click on Publications and Deliverables developed by the FPC Fraud and Scam Mitigation for Faster Payments Workgroup. This report provides industry guidance for designing dispute resolution frameworks related to fraud and scams involving instant payments and instant account to account payments continue to grow in the United States. The report addresses the unique challenges associated with fraud dispute resolution in irrevocable payment environments. The principles outlined in the report are intended to help strengthen consumer and business confidence while supporting the continued adoption of instant payments. FPC's board of directors elections are wrapping up and we will soon be seeking nominations for our Board Advisory Group. We encourage all FPC members who are interested in helping to shape the future of the FPC and the work we will be doing to submit your nominations. The Board Advisory Group will be meeting with the Board of Directors in person at the FPC Fall Member Meeting in Kansas City and at the 2027 spring member meeting in San Antonio. And that will do it for the headlines. Let's get to that discussion with Scott Anchin from icba. All right, we're joined by Scott Anchin from icba. Scott, thanks for joining.

Speaker A: Great to be here. Thank you so much for inviting me. I've been waiting for your call Read.

Speaker B: Uh, well, I've been. I've been looking forward to this for a while, actually. And it's funny how it, um, somehow never has worked out until now. But I'm glad we got you on. How about we start with you? Just give us, you know, what's your background? Where are you coming from? What's your role now? You know, why are. Why am I talking to you?

Speaker A: Yeah, that's a great question. So right now I'm with the Independent Community Bankers of America, and as you and listeners probably know, we're the only national trade group that's exclusively focused on community banks. And community banks obviously are a significant contributor to the economies of main Streets around the country. Uh, there's a significant number of counties in the United States that only have community banks as the physical bank presence. Community banks write a significant number of small business loans, the vast majority of agricultural loans, uh, and employ large numbers of folks around the country. So really a significant contributor to economies. I spend most of my time at the intersection of payments and policy. So I work on instant payments, fraud scams, and related regulatory questions that come with both. Um, I have a long payments history. Prior to icba, I worked with the Federal Reserve, uh, at the board, at the Chicago Fed, at the Cleveland Fed on a number of different payments initiatives. And Reid, that's where you and I met. And before that I worked, uh, at the White House Office of Management and Budget, uh, in both Republican, uh, and Democrat administration. So, uh, a great grounding in the policy process, how it works on both sides of the aisle. And I'm a lawyer by training, like you, Reid.

Speaker B: Well, I'm glad you mentioned that that was how we met when you were at the Fed, because I did want to take a little trip down memory la. Uh, you and I, we were kind of some of the OGs behind this whole FPC thing. So, you know, what do you remember most from. From those early days?

Speaker A: Yeah, I think the great thing about that process was for the first time, you had all of the industry segments sitting down together hashing out some of these really tough questions. So these were pieces of industry that were not necessarily talking to each other on a regular basis prior to that point. But there was a real spirit, I think, of collaboration and forward momentum and a desire really to create durable solutions to the problems that had been there for years and years. So I really remember that sense of collaboration. And we also had a lot of fun. I mean, I think that a lot of great relationships were forged out of that process and those I think have carried forward and have resulted really in a more positive and collaborative ecosystem broadly. I mean it's been, in addition to the time that we spent actually doing that, it's really carried over for years and years after.

Speaker B: Yeah, well otherwise I'd be doing a terrible job. Um, yeah, I think that's one of the biggest things for me and one of the biggest draws to helping to launch the FPC and then now run it is that you're right like you still, it's one of the, it still remains one of the only places where we have all those different segments coming together and working collegially on a common goal of advancing payments modernization in the US and it's pretty cool um, how you know, you know two, you know how just a handful of people kind of got together and really launched this thing together. Um, it's a, it's fun um, and it's I think a great service to the industry overall to have a group like that going obviously self serving for

Speaker A: me to say that of course but I mean it's true and we see it today. If you look at the fpcs work groups, I mean they're, they're very diverse in composition and the conversations I think are really productive and interesting and you have people collaborating who wouldn't otherwise do it. I mean it's a really valuable forum.

Speaker B: Um, yeah. And that, that kind of leads me to the other thing I wanted to chat about is you and I obviously everybody involved had thoughts and expectations about what the fpc, which we eventually named it. Right. It didn't even have a name when we started that whole journey. Um, that was more time spent on the name than people would maybe want to hear about. Um, but what has surprised you with how things have played out?

Speaker A: Yeah, I think the thing that's really surprised me was when we first had these conversations it was really uh, almost like a product conversation. We were talking about uh, rtp, we were talking about uh, you know a future Fed payment, uh, instant payment system and we were focused on the Rails almost as products but now that they're in the market and they're being adopted the conversation has really changed and in my mind that's almost become irrelevant. And it's the layer that sits on top of the product, the layer that sits on top of the rails that's really the most important thing to stakeholders and the thing that we're now spending than most of our time on. I mean thinking about use cases, thinking about safety and security, thinking about efficiency, thinking about even now new Entrants, uh, into the space. I think that it's interesting to see that conversation, uh, shift from the fundamental infrastructure concerns to actual implementation and usage concerns. So maybe not a surprise, but just a really interesting evolution to be a part of and to watch.

Speaker B: Yeah, and I think we can kind of lose sight of that if we're like, we're living in it day to day, right. We're kind of. And you kind of think, well, it's the same thing all, uh, for eight years. But really it's not right. Really. It was like the secure faster Payments Task Force, all that work on the criteria, the effectiveness criteria. If anybody wants to Google that, you can probably, it's probably still out there somewhere. Um, but that was really to your point, that was about the rail and what the rail should do now. Now we have Rails in place, they're mature, they're processing literally trillions of dollars a year. And yeah, the conversation is about how do we, what are some, um, additional use cases, what are some different functionality, what are the trust layers that need to be in place for it to really scale beyond the trillions? You know, I mean trillions is already quite a bit.

Speaker A: And I think relatedly, you know, you mentioned the Secure Payments Task Force. Initially faster payments and secure payments were viewed as separate paths of work, two separate task forces, but now they're very much intertwined. Safety and security are a part of the conversation. Within the payments realm, it's really not separable at all. And I think that all of the Rails and all of the infrastructure providers have done really great work integrating all of that thinking in and building tools and features in that make that part and parcel to what the Rails do. So I think that that's been a really positive evolution to see that, that come together. So we're not viewing faster payments and safe payments as separate things, we're viewing them all as one conversation.

Speaker B: Yeah, for sure. And that's why here at the fpc, one of our three strategic areas is trust.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: So it's definitely continuing to focus on the reach of the networks, the user experience. But then also that trust aspect is critical. Right. If you're not, if you don't have the right trust layers in place when it comes to safety and security, exception resolution, things like that, um, ultimately different end users are not going to use the service.

Speaker A: Yeah, and trust is such an important word because, uh, when I think about community banks, I think about trust as being absolutely fundamental to their business model. So they have incredible, uh, trust, uh, from their customers, given the relationships they have. So when they have the ability to offer uh, a product that's, you know, that rides on rails that are safe and trusted, it's such a great synergy with the work that they already do. So I think instant payments is such a powerful tool for community banks and I'm so pleased to have seen the rapid adoption and uptake across the community banking sphere of instant payments. Uh, I think the word trust really sums up why they mix so well together.

Speaker B: Mm mhm. That's actually a good segue because the other thing I wanted to make sure we talked about is, you know, be seeing as how you are now at ICBA and you guys are focused on helping represent the thousands of community banks across this country, you know, where what are you seeing in terms of the current trends for community banks adopting insta payments? You mentioned it. You know, it's happening rapidly but you know, still thousands of fis have not adopted.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. The good news is, I mean we've conducted uh, surveys and others have conducted surveys and the vast majority of community banks have either adopted or intend to adopt instant payments. Now I think it's probably no surprise that a lot of them are adopting receive only to start, uh, you know, based on, on uh, risk appetite and risk concerns. Uh, but I think as folks are starting to see volume enter the networks, uh, they're thinking ahead towards send. I think requests for payment is a really valuable tool. Uh, and they're having conversations especially with small business customers about ways that instant payments can reduce reliance on checks and increase efficiency. Obviously small uh, businesses are very cash flow sensitive so the ability to manage cash flow in real time is really powerful tool for them and something that community banks can really offer as a value add to those customers. So I think they're seeing a lot of uptake. They've also done a great job I think exploring unique use cases. And one of the ones I like to point to is agricultural lending. Uh, community banks, like I said, they write a large majority of the agricultural loans in this uh, country and agricultural operations are very reliant on cash flow as well. And uh, there are community banks that have done a great job employing instant payments to uh, give real time agricultural uh, loan disbursements and things like that, uh, within that sector. And I think that there's a lot of potential there. So I've been really pleased to see them exploring um, new worlds and new opportunities like that. It's really given a lot of opportunity to innovate uh, for these institutions that have that great trust among their customers. So when they offer something, the customers listen, they trust them.

Speaker B: Yeah. And I think that that trust that is inherent in that relationship is going to be, is going to be key for, for, for the, the scale of these payment types. You know, I think one, it's one thing for the fi to have said, okay, we've adopted it in quotation marks, but it's another for them to be actively promoting it and their customers actively like using it for different things. And one thing we see is especially you know, it's this is coming from corporates, they're a little easier to survey. But I would be shocked if the result isn't the same for consumers is that they actually like it more than they think they will once they're given access to it. It's like it actually it's better than people expect it to be. And I think that's um, that's a great story for the community fis to be able to tell. Um, another. Oh, sorry. Oh, another thing I was going to say is I spend a lot of time as, as you do interacting with community financial institutions at different conferences and events and things and the, the transition we've seen over the last couple years is really remarkable in their, where their minds are at like a couple years ago being at a uh, regional payments event, the questions were about like what, what is this? Why should I care? Now the questions are not, they're all about you know, how am I, how do I do it, when and when am I going to do it? They're not asking about those sort of like what and why questions anymore. And, and that's great.

Speaker A: Yeah. And I think a really valuable piece of it has been uh, the work that service providers have done in conjunction with community banks to allow them to onboard quickly and to implement easily. Most uh, community banks connect to instant payments through a uh, third party service provider, whether it's their core or another entity. And so I think in the beginning we saw first providers kind of uh, you know, trying to figure it out themselves, how to connect to the Rails, how to offer the service, how to offer uh, competitive pricing. But as some of that has become more mature it's becoming much easier for community banks to implement instant payments. In a lot of cases it's fairly turnkey. Uh, and so that, that has helped a lot that, that level of maturity. I think, you know, there's still opportunities to streamline that a bit more. Uh, but, but I think we've come a long way in that respect.

Speaker B: Yeah. All right, good stuff. Let's move on. Let's play some games. We're going to play Odd one Out.

Speaker A: So I'm gonna love the game.

Speaker B: I'll give you three things. Uh, tell us which one is the odd one out and you can have any criteria you like for deciding that. And you just tell us what it is and why.

Speaker A: Okay?

Speaker B: All right, so the first three we're going to throw at you. Stablecoin, ACH or Instant Payments.

Speaker A: I think I'm going to go with stablecoin. So ACH and Instant Payments of course are bank, uh, operated payment rails. Uh, they exist within a very uh, well regulated, well understood environment. Stablecoin obviously very new, there's some regulation around it but uh, that's still evolving very rapidly. And I think from a community bank perspective we talked a lot about trust. I think that the trust that they provide to their uh, customers in terms of uh, operating safe and secure systems like ach, Instant Payments is really valuable. Uh whereas stablecoin I think presents a lot more risk right now to the financial system. So uh, evolving very rapidly. But right now I think stablecoin is definitely the outlier.

Speaker B: All right, how about these three rules, regulations, standards.

Speaker A: For this one I'm going to go with regulation. I think that the distinction here is that regulations carry the force of law. These are things promulgated by regulatory agencies. But rules and standards are largely industry set and that's very much the territory of the Faster Payments Council and industry groups. And I think that there's a lot of value to both. I think that uh, obviously uh, parties value the certainty that comes with regulation. But at the same time I think there are problems that can be solved at an industry level and a lot, a lot of times that's more efficient and it doesn't come with some of the regulatory burden, uh that regulations come with. Community banks oftentimes uh, worry about that regulatory burden. So in many cases I think the work that's done by industry to push forward rules and standards has uh, just a ton of value, can have the same outcomes but with less burden and more efficiency.

Speaker B: All right, uh, how about these three? It's actually maybe, maybe similar. We'll see what you say. Industry, government or individuals?

Speaker A: I think for this one I'll go with individuals. I mean industry and government, they're the folks setting the rules, regulations and standards and the individuals are the ones that uh, are kind of serviced by those, those uh, rules and uh, regulations and standards. I think it's interesting to see how uh, different groups. Keep in mind the individuals that are the ultimate downstream uh, folks who are impacted by these things, uh, and I think they do it differently. It's interesting when you look at the way that rules are. Regulations are promulgated when you read them. There's almost mathematical, uh, calculations that go along with, uh, burden and how they affect consumers. I think, uh, standards and rules may be a little bit less mathematical, a little bit more, uh, experiential. So maybe the impact is different. But, uh, regardless, individuals, they stand out.

Speaker B: All right, uh, I'm gonna butcher the pronunciations of these next, this next one, but we'll. We'll give it a go. And you can, you can correct me, and everybody can laugh at how horrible it is. I got Patek Philippe, uh, Audemars Piquet, and A. Lang and Son. How'd I do?

Speaker A: You did okay. You did okay. So these are watch brands. These are watch brands. And I think that for anybody who's a watch aficionado, I think they would agree that a Lange Unzona is the. That's exactly what you said. M. I don't speak German, but, uh, Lange is a German watch brand. But Patek and, uh, AP are Swiss watch brands. So I would say that, uh, Lange is the outlier there and a fine watchmaking company indeed. Uh, they do a lot of hand engraving on their pieces, so, uh, really, really great work there.

Speaker B: So probably out of my price range.

Speaker A: I, um, mean, you never know. We'll have to see if these instant payments take off.

Speaker B: Uh, yeah, uh, maybe I can just get somebody to send me a bunch of instant payments. How about, uh, speaking of instant payments, receive, send, request for payment.

Speaker A: Um, yeah, I think request for payment is probably the one that stands out there because receive and send. I think of those as mechanisms for moving money. Receiving it, you're sending it. But the request for payment, that's a message, uh, which is a little bit different than actually moving the money. And I think it's been an important evolution in instant payments because it's enabled a whole new set of use cases. So I think folks are really just starting to scratch the surface on what these things can do. So I look forward to kind of figuring it out. Community banks are thinking about it, and they've got some ideas. So stay tuned for that.

Speaker B: Ooh, uh, may have to do a follow up. Uh, Andre Reed, J. Jim Kelly, Thurman Thomas.

Speaker A: Oh, my 1990s bills. Uh, a great lineup, obviously. But you know what? I'm actually going to draw a payments analogy here, which is a really good way to ruin football. So Jim Kelly is a Quarterback, of course. Right, Andrew? Yeah, he was a. No, he's still a quarterback. He's once a quarterback, always a quarterback. Andre Reed and Thurman Thomas obviously, uh, uh, skills players. So Jim Kelly, he is transmitting, sending the football. And Andre Reed and Thurman Thomas, they're the receivers, they're receiving the football. If one of them is open, they send a request for the football. Not a request for payment, request for the football. So I'm gonna say Jim Kelly stands out because he's the sender.

Speaker B: Oh, it's a good thing I didn't put whoever played center for the bills in the 90s.

Speaker A: That would make things a lot more complicated. But from now on, whenever anybody thinks of a quarterback, they'll think of them as a payment sender.

Speaker B: Yeah, everything is payments. Payments, exactly.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Uh, my, the, the, the player that I always think of and you didn't even remember this guy Don Beebe from the, from the bills of that era. And I don't know why he's stuck in my head, but uh, you know,

Speaker A: after we had our conversation, I did remember Don Beebe be. I, I also of course love a good Doug Flutie reference. Ah. Uh, yeah, uh, he, he was famous for his Fluty Flakes cereal, A short lived cereal.

Speaker B: Good times. Uh, much simpler times I'd say. Uh, all right, congratulations. You've won. Odd one out. You're undefeated so far. Let's get into word association. So I'm going to give you a different word or phrase. You just tell me the first thing that comes to your mind and why Send?

Speaker A: Send is the future. I think that um, obviously like I said, within the community bank space, the majority of community banks have adopted uh, receive based on risk concerns, but they're absolutely interested in send and are thinking about send for the future.

Speaker B: Yeah, the majority for sure are looking, are definitely planning for receive, at least if not having adopted it. How about fraud?

Speaker A: I would say fraud is the number one concern. I think it's the irrevocability piece, uh, and the association with scams that makes fraud the number one concern people have with instant payments. Uh, I think the good news is from a fraud perspective, the Rails are inherently very safe. I think that it's important to draw the differentiation between fraud and scams because scams can be perpetuated using a variety of mechanisms. Instant payments, wire, crypto, you know, instant payments is just one mechanism, uh, and shouldn't be singled out for that. So it's the number one concern. But I think that it's not, uh, I think it's overblown.

Speaker B: Yeah. I mean if somebody walks up to you on the street and they are talking to your face and they convince you through some series of lies to give them cash.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Nobody would call that cash fraud.

Speaker A: Right. Exactly, exactly. And I think it's a mechanism that's used to perpetuate the scam.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: And yes, that applies to payment, but it applies to every single payments rail in equal measure.

Speaker B: Right. And I, I do think to the extent you're listening to this, you're a financial institution, you're considered, you're concerned about the combination of irrevocability and sc, which is certainly a confluence of two factors we have at the fpc an exception resolution workgroup that's going to be trying to dig into that and figure out what's a good framework for resolving some of those exception cases. Um, so it might be something to look at.

Speaker A: And I would say that FIs have done a great job adding productive friction to transactions to prevent these things to the extent that they can. Uh, and I think customers generally, from what I've heard, appreciate that friction, it's not unwanted friction. Uh, community banks are often thanked for the work that they do in stopping people from making payments. So uh, I think we've evolved a lot in that space both in terms of the technology but also in terms of customer expectations.

Speaker B: Yeah, I agree. I think it can be too, too slick of an M experience and people feel kind of like weirded out by it if it doesn't have the right amount of what feels like you're making me safe. Um, how about use cases, Scott?

Speaker A: I would say B2B. I would say that the use case that's really uh, evolved to be the most promising, at least in the community bank space is B2B. Uh, I think that um, some of the small businesses really rely on suppliers, supplier payments, uh, payments from suppliers and I think that there's just a ton of value in, in that for cash flow purposes, cash flow management purposes. So I really like the potential there in the B2B space. I think payroll is another great one. Um, I think again small businesses can really uh, help their employees with flexible payroll solutions. Uh, and I think that that's really valuable in some of the communities that community banks serve.

Speaker B: Yeah, I agree with that for sure. How about uh, AI?

Speaker A: AI is an interesting one. I mean I think that AI is a double edged sword. I think that it's a tool that fraudsters and scammers use to uh, steal money from people. But it's Also a really valuable piece of defense, uh, for financial institutions. Community banks have spent a lot of time thinking about how to implement AI in fraud detection. And the technology has become so much more accessible that uh, gives community banks an opportunity to fight fraud at the same level as their much larger counterparts. And so that I think that's enabled a uh, lot of additional safety for community bank customers. So yeah, really a double edged sword. It's both the danger and the solution.

Speaker B: Yeah, uh, synthetic identities.

Speaker A: Synthetic identities. I think uh, I associate that obviously with risk. I mean I think that it's a hugely growing and difficult to detect fraud, uh, vector. I mean I think it gels nicely with the AI conversation because AI, I think is useful in helping to detect some of these synthetic identities.

Speaker B: Almost thought of that when I put them next to each other.

Speaker A: Is that, could you have been doing that, Reid? I think, um, I think that you know, community banks traditionally have really known their customers uh, very well. Uh, and that's proven to be a really valuable defense for community banks from synthetic identities. But nevertheless because of AI, they're becoming more sophisticated, uh, and put together in ways that are much more convincing. So certainly they're a growing risk but, but not, I don't think it's an insurmountable challenge. I think I'll also give some credit to the Fed here who has a synthetic id, uh toolkit which has a lot of valuable material in it, which is accessible to all. So I think the industry is doing a good job educating and fighting back in that in that area.

Speaker B: Yeah, we'll put a link to that toolkit in the show notes if anybody is interested in finding, tracking that down.

Speaker A: Checks, uh, still with us. So checks, uh, I think have been a huge uh, fraud vector. Of course, I think uh, institutions of every size and customers have been struggling with this uh, throughout the industry and throughout consumers. Um, and I don't think they're going to go away. I think that there's a lot of communities and individuals that still rely on them. But checks of course are the opportunity, a huge opportunity for instant payments. I think that instant, instant payments. Implementing uh, instant payments both eliminates the number of checks in the ecosystem, uh, which increases efficiency and it decreases the economic impact of fraud. So I think a ton of opportunity there and a valuable thing to talk about when we talk about why instant payments has value, getting rid of those checks.

Speaker B: Yeah, I don't necessarily always endorse the start with use cases approach to instant payments. I'm more, more of a believer in hey, if, if There's a uh, flow that you, that you're doing and that instant payments can make it more efficient. Go for it. But I do think to the extent you're thinking about it from an ROI perspective as a financial institution, looking at what are the use cases that your customers are using checks for today, uh, could be a great place to identify some real roi because checks are very expensive for, for financial institutions uh, when, when they're being used by your account holders. Stablecoin, uh,

Speaker A: risky, I would say risky. I think that you know we talked before about how, uh, when we were talking about the, the odd one out how ach and instant payments are well regulated, bank centric payment rails, uh, that have uh, years and years of trust behind them. I don't think we see that with stablecoin. How it will evolve is anybody's guess. But uh, it's certainly not at a place where established payment mechanisms that are bank centric are right now. And so when we talk about critical uh, payments and things like that, I think there's a ton of risk moving them to something that's uh, untrusted and untested.

Speaker B: And one more innovation I would say,

Speaker A: uh, I think community banks, I think that uh, community banks have done a really great job adapting to the needs of their local communities and that's, that's really important and it's really valuable. Communities are always changing uh, both their makeup and their needs. And community banks, because they have such strong ties with their communities and they know uh, the people, they know the customers, they can respond really rapidly and in real time to those needs. And I think that instant payments has really enabled them to uh, innovate rapidly in terms of use cases and serving their customers needs. So I've been really impressed with how community banks have responded to these changes, uh, and have innovated just from the macro to the micro, just in every way just to serve their customers better.

Speaker B: All right, congrats. You have one word association. Well done sir. Um, before I let you go though, you have to give us, Give us one LinkedIn account to follow.

Speaker A: All right. I would say you should follow ICBA's account. Uh, we obviously are doing a lot of work for community banks and constantly talking about uh, how ICBA and community banks benefit Main Street. And so I think it's valuable to sort of follow that. Uh, I would also say another one I would recommend uh, for anybody who's interested in fraud and scams. Eric Huber from TD bank, uh, he's often diving into the dark web and uh, Showing folks some of the things that he finds there. He was a guest, uh, at ICBA's Fraud and Scams task force. He talked to our task force about some of the things that are going on there. And just a really interesting account to follow.

Speaker B: How about a podcast?

Speaker A: So I'm not really a big podcast guy. I mean, this is obviously the best podcast out there. Uh, but you know, another interesting one that I kind of like is, uh, a podcast called the Urbanist by Monocle. So if anyone's interested in cities and the relationships between cities and the people that live in them and the people that visit them, it's really interesting. I mean, it's a real global look at the way cities are evolving and, uh, responding to the needs of the folks that live there. Probably a parallel there to community banks, actually.

Speaker B: Probably. And also parallel to payments, for sure, because. Payments, yeah.

Speaker A: Oh, absolutely. Yeah.

Speaker B: How about a book?

Speaker A: So let me give you two books. I'm going to give you two books or a book and an author. Um, one book I like on the nonfiction side is a book called the Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software by Charles Petzold. So I find that, uh, within the payments policy space where I work, I'm sort of it adjacent. Obviously there's a lot of technology involved in what we talk about and what we do. And this book, uh, explains the way computer hardware works, but it builds it up, uh, through analogy and layering from a very simple flashlight all the way up through complex mainframe systems. So it's a really interesting look for someone who's not a hardware engineer or really technology educated in, uh, electrical engineering or anything like that, about how computers actually work, the technology that powers everything that we do. And I would say on the non fiction front, it's important to get away from, uh, payments and policy sometimes. I love Haruki Murakami. He's a Japanese author. He, uh, writes really surreal fiction. Uh, a lot of jazz references, Japanese whiskey references. Just really interesting stuff. It takes, uh, you out of the real world and puts you in kind of a really bizarre dream world. Uh, so for anyone who likes something a little bit different, uh, I would check out Haruki Murakami. He's always part of the conversation about the Nobel Prize in Literature. Hasn't won it yet, but, uh, he will. He will.

Speaker B: Well now he's gotten an endorsement on this podcast. Yeah, it's pretty much a lock.

Speaker A: I think so.

Speaker B: All right, Scott, thanks so much. This is great.

Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. It was great to be here. Um, and you know I'll leave it open for folks. You know, if people have questions about community banks and how they're thinking about instant payments, you know, feel free to reach out to me.

Speaker B: All right, thanks so much, Scott. Good to talk to you. And that is it for this episode. Thank you so much for listening. Thank you to Scott for joining me. And please, please, please take a moment to leave us a five star review. Subscribe to the podcast so you don't miss future episodes and share it throughout your network. Also, if you aren't already Following FPC on LinkedIn, get out there and click that follow button. Please, please, please help us. That account shares a ton of valuable information, so share it with yourself, share it with your friends and colleagues. Have a great day and we will talk to you in a couple weeks.