As SVP, enterprise payments strategy, Tara Edmonds leads payments strategy across consumer, small business, commercial, treasury, correspondent and corporate payments at SouthState Bank in North Carolina. Edmonds said the strongest measure of her impact last year was "moving payments from a primarily operational function to a strategic platform for growth, client experience, and deposit retention."
Edmonds has been with SouthState for 13 years, starting in 2013 as a part-time teller. She moved into deposit operations the next year, and they moved to information technology in 2018, leading technology service provider management, core banking conversions, treasury management platforms, and IT strategy. Eventually, that path led to payments. Today, she works across the bank with teams in corporate, commercial, small business, consumer, and specialty banking.
"When I look back, every role taught me something different. Starting in the branch, moving through operations, spending time in technology, and now leading payments strategy has given me a unique perspective on how all the pieces fit together and how important collaboration is to driving meaningful change," she told American Banker.
In 2025, Edmonds played a central leadership role in advancing two of the bank's priorities: instant payments modernization and digital assets. She led a cross-functional effort to expand SouthState's real-time payment capabilities across RTP and FedNow, and helped build a multi-year enterprise payments roadmap connecting instant payments, ACH, wires, fraud and sanctions, and APIs.
"What made the work meaningful was not just the launch, but the collaboration it required across technology, operations, treasury management, risk, compliance, client-facing teams and leadership," Edmonds said.
Edmonds is also the chair of the enterprise payments steering committee, and helps align the bank's business priorities on technology, operations, risk, compliance, digital banking and treasury management.
On the digital assets front, Edmonds is currently leading the bank's strategic exploration and execution of digital assets, with a particular focus on tokenized deposits. She was instrumental in shaping the business case, operating model, and governance approach for tokenized deposits, ensuring the initiative was grounded in deposit fundamentals, 1:1 collateralization, and regulatory clarity. As part of that effort, she is coordinating closely with legal, compliance, risk, and technology teams to design an operating framework that addresses settlement, custody, ledger integrity, and exception handling.
"Tara's recognition as one of the most powerful payments professionals under 40 is well deserved. She brings industry expertise, strategic thinking, and a strong focus on results," said Robb Byrd, Edmonds' manager, who is EVP, Head of Bank Operations at SouthState Bank. "She leads with integrity, collaborates across teams, and continually improves the experience for our customers and team members."
Externally, she represents SouthState through senior industry roles with Nacha, the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond's Payments Advisory Council, and the American Bankers Association Payments Administrative Council.
