Banking Transformed with Jim Marous

Dr. Lamont Black explains how stablecoins could cost banks and credit unions interchange, data and deposits.

This Flashback Friday revisits one of our most popular interviews, recorded in January 2026 with Dr. Lamont Black, a former Federal Reserve economist and finance professor at DePaul University.

Dr. Black placed the shift in 2027, once the GENIUS Act takes effect. Since then, the OCC finalized its stablecoin rule on October 21, 2026, and the Act takes effect January 18, 2027. Other regulatory work remains, but banks and credit unions now have a date to prepare for.

Dr. Black says interchange loss could reach 5, 10 or 20% in 2027, starting slowly and then building quickly like Apple Pay and Samsung Pay. Merchants like Amazon could accept a stablecoin for about 1% when a card costs closer to 3%, and he suggests checking how much interchange your institution collects on Amazon Prime Day, which he calls material for many institutions. The risk extends to transaction data and to deposits, as customers sweep spending money from checking accounts into stablecoin balances.

He also discusses where to start. Dr. Black explains why a wallet that works with existing stablecoins like USDC is a better first experiment than issuing your own coin, which he does not necessarily recommend for most smaller institutions. He recommends education at the board and executive level, then an internal working group across payments, deposits and IT, and argues that small is nimble because you do not have to be big to play in this space.

Hosted by Jim Marous. Subscribe to Banking Transformed for new episodes multiple times each week.

A Coinbase-commissioned study by The Block Research found that 7 of the 10 largest U.S. banks have tested stablecoins or tokenized deposits for settlement, and the other 3 have signaled plans to follow. The same study found that 73% of screened stablecoin transfer volume over a 12-month period took place outside U.S. banking hours. For a bank or credit union, those numbers raise a direct question about what stablecoin payments mean for deposits and interchange revenue, and how long an institution can wait.

Recorded at Money 20/20 in Las Vegas, this conversation is with Pavel Kashuba, Strategic Leader at CoinsPaid Solutions, which runs the back office of stablecoin payments. Pavel explains that cross-border settlement, replacing correspondent banking, is the biggest use among financial institutions today, and why he believes they can do much more. He also describes how differing regulatory definitions across countries slow adoption, and why legacy operations hold progress back, which is why CoinsPaid invests in educating the people who work with the technology every day.

Pavel expects AI agents to partner with particular blockchains and to choose which blockchain and token a payment runs on. He says the biggest institutions already have strategic plans, with some hiring people and building software while others sit and wait, and he sees waiting as a strategy too. Jim compares the moment to instant payments, when a group of the largest banks in the country had nobody ready on day one, and asks what every bank or credit union should do today.

About Pavel Kashuba: Strategic Leader at CoinsPaid Solutions, which runs the back office of stablecoin payments.

Hosted by Jim Marous. Subscribe to Banking Transformed for new episodes multiple times each week.

Download the Innovation in Retail Banking report: https://www.digitalbankingreport.com/trends/innovation-in-retail-banking-2025/?IV60

U.S. Bank gets customer improvements from idea to launch by tying the work to business priorities, bringing risk in early and setting success measures before work starts, and banks and credit unions of any size can copy the method.

Jim Marous is often asked which U.S. banking organization has the most impressive innovation culture, and he never hesitates to say U.S. Bank. Anyone who has changed banks knows the autopayments are what take the time. This Banking Insights episode looks at how U.S. Bank chooses which customer problems to solve and organizes itself to deliver. Two recent announcements, Protect 360 and Payment Switch, came 12 days apart, and Keynova and American Banker have recognized the results.

Drawing on his interviews with Dom Venturo, senior executive vice president and chief AI, data and innovation officer, and Don Relyea, Chief Innovation Officer, Jim explains the operating details. Work is tied to business priorities, risk partners get involved while ideas are still taking shape, success criteria are set before work starts, and a clear handoff moves a proven idea to the line of business that will own it. Dom says about 80% of what a new product needs can come from existing tools.

Jim also covers what a smaller bank or credit union can take from this. That includes questioning every step customers are asked to complete, putting providers and risk in the first meeting, learning what existing providers already support, and telling employees and customers when something launches. Jim also explains why the recognition U.S. Bank collects goes mostly to improvements customers can see and use, and how the bank tells people what it builds. The episode closes with one question every institution can use to find its next improvement.

About: Banking Transformed is hosted by Jim Marous, top five banking industry influencer and Co-Publisher of The Financial Brand. Banking Insights episodes deliver the most important strategic ideas in under ten minutes, for the executive who wants the takeaway without the deep dive. Subscribe to the Digital Banking Report at digitalbankingreport.com.

Financial institutions should make it easy to do business with them their first priority. One community bank got account opening to 2 minutes and 13 seconds and increased conversion rates to almost 70%.

Derek Corcoran spent 25 years working on customer experience in financial services, including time as chief experience officer at Temenos. His new book, Designing for Need, argues that the industry copied its playbook from businesses selling things people enjoy. Banking is something people need to do, and the best version of a need-to-do experience gives the customer their time back. He makes the case with a community bank that opened accounts in 2 minutes and 13 seconds and a London branch where customers spent 55 minutes anyway.

Jim pushes back. He has spent years arguing that customers want us to know them, understand them and help improve their financial wellness, which sounds like the opposite of an institution designing itself to disappear. Derek's answer is the notice that arrives before an overdraft and the sweep from savings that quietly prevents it, an institution responding to what is happening in the customer's life in real time. They also talk about embedded banking, and why Derek treats AI as a tool that follows strategy.

Derek says banks under $10 billion held about 15% of industry assets and distributed 45% of PPP funds, and that friends of his who moved to a community bank were back at a national bank within a year. They get into intentional friction, with a customer who said a $600,000 mortgage should feel serious, the question of when you last opened an account at your own institution, and the marketing promise Bankwest and DBS make that Derek can't find an American institution making.

Hosted by Jim Marous. Subscribe to Banking Transformed for new episodes multiple times each week.

Download the 2026 Retail Banking Trends and Priorities report from the Digital Banking Report: https://www.digitalbankingreport.com/trends/2026-retail-banking-trends-and-priorities/?YouTubeIV59

Money 20/20 showed banks and credit unions what to prepare for: AI agents that move money, new payment rails and rules that are still being written. The OCC finalized its first federal rule for stablecoin issuers during the show, and several large banks were reported to be restricting third-party AI agents in customer accounts within days of its close.

At Money 20/20 in Las Vegas, American Express shared research showing 59% of consumers are comfortable with AI recommending a purchase but only 36% are comfortable letting an agent complete it. Jim Marous thinks that gap may already be optimistic after Amazon blocked Meta's Muse shopping agent for not identifying itself, Meta patched a flaw that could have let an attacker hijack the assistant, and six major banks published principles for trust in agentic commerce.

Jim uses the show as a model for how banks and credit unions can learn from any large industry event: look for the issues that matter, the direction banking is heading and the speed of change. Three themes ran through it. Rules cover authority, identity and responsibility; rails connect accounts and move money; and readiness covers whether customers, employees and the institution can depend on the service. An agent that recommends moving a customer's savings to another institution touches all three.

His view is that caution about AI agents is reasonable and there is no reason to stop. Gated entry lets agents through on conditions, while barriers push the activity somewhere institutions cannot see it, and for the foreseeable future he expects agents to work on behalf of customers, much like a financial advisor within guardrails. The episode closes with practical steps for preparing for more than one outcome, including a standing list of developments, a provider walkthrough of one customer experience, and small tests.

About: Banking Transformed is hosted by Jim Marous, a top five banking industry influencer and Co-Publisher of The Financial Brand. Banking Insights episodes deliver the most important strategic ideas in about ten minutes, for the executive who wants the takeaway without the deep dive. Subscribe to the Digital Banking Report at digitalbankingreport.com.