What actually mattered in banking during the first half of 2026 — and what was just noise?

Jim Marous welcomes Ron Shevlin, Chief Research Officer at Cornerstone Advisors, back to Banking Transformed for a mid-year review that cuts through the hype.

The conversation covers why agentic AI is both overweighted and underweighted by banks and credit unions; Ron Shevlin’s three-part framework for AI’s impact, and the pivotal question of how work gets done versus who does the work; the stablecoin and tokenized-deposit debate, and the evolving role of core providers including Fiserv, FIS, and Jack Henry.

They also discuss bank and credit union consolidation driven by capabilities and digital maturity rather than geography, and the fintechs Ron is watching most closely — SoFi, Robinhood, and Coinbase.

At the heart of the episode is the decline of primacy: why a single “primary bank” no longer exists for consumers under 40, and why direct deposit no longer signals a growing relationship. The episode closes with each guest’s top priority for the second half of 2026.

Ron Shevlin publishes the Fintech Snark Tank on Substack (ronshevlin.substack.com) and LinkedIn. Hosted by Jim Marous, co-publisher of The Financial Brand and Owner and Publisher of the Digital Banking Report.