PayThink

Washington, D.C., may be the epicenter of the nation's birthday celebrations, but the financiers, financial institutions and city that funded it deserve some attention, too.

Now that the code underlying payment systems can be rewritten faster than its reliability can be checked, banks and payments processors need to adopt new methods of verifying that changes are safe and stable.

As stablecoins and other cryptocurrencies enter the mainstream, lawmakers in Illinois have imposed a new transaction tax on digital assets. It will raise costs for everyday consumers and drive away businesses.

Yes, banks' capital burden will decline, leaving more potential funds available for lending. But the big question is which banks will find a way to deploy those funds to generate meaningful returns.

As AI agents become more of a presence in retail commerce, payments processors and merchants alike are going to have to adjust to a new world where purchasing decisions are made at machine-speed.

There is a tendency among many sales managers to tightly script sales interactions. But if you attempt to take all reasoning and thinking out of a job, you'll get employees who stop reasoning or thinking.

Restrictions that limit access to private market investments are harmful to ordinary investors, who are denied better returns. They also seal off a large potential source of funding for long-term infrastructure investments.

Foreign investors are gobbling up tokenized U.S. equities while domestic investors remain unable to take advantage of the opportunities such assets offer. U.S. policymakers need to level the playing field.

Despite claims to the contrary, the national bank charter is not only alive and well, but is being aggressively defended by an Office of the Comptroller of the Currency that seems hostile toward state-level regulation.

Proposed rules for implementing the GENIUS Act demand close examination. While regulators' intentions are admirable, some of their suggestions threaten to create the very problems they are meant to resolve.