Matthew Leising

The chief innovation officer says the bank is on track to do over $100 million in SBA loans in 2026. His growth secret: partner with innovative early-stage startups.

Together with CEO Anthony Noto, the CTO is capitalizing on a "technology super cycle" dominated by blockchain, digital assets and AI. That gave rise to the SoFiUSD stablecoin.

One big initiative is the near-instantaneous HDSU, a permissioned-blockchain framework connecting digital rails moving crypto with banking's settlement system handling fiat currencies.

The distributed ledger settlement utility allows blockchain-based payments to be sent to anyone with a bank account.

The CEO of Anchorage Digital is getting a lot of ammunition from partners, notably Tether, who invested $100 million in the bank and also chose it to issue its U.S.-focused stablecoin.

Vantage Bank devotes 45% of its tech budget to innovation. In 2025, it launched 11 digital-asset projects, kicking off $7 million in revenue and $12 million in savings.

If the CEO of Custodia Bank gets her way, then she—and her innovation partner, Vantage Bank CEO Jeff Sinnott—will see the Haven Network unlike on-chain finance for other small banks.