Fintech Corner

Most stablecoin conversations start with a list of use cases. Cross-border payments, access to dollars, micropayments, and treasury. Walter Hessert's view is that a stablecoin's properties don't create adoption on their own. Someone has to understand the buyer.

In this episode of the stablecoin series, Brett Turner, Founder and CEO of Trovata, and Paul Bances, who leads Trovata's stablecoin efforts, are joined by Walter Hessert, Head of Strategy at Paxos. Paxos issued its first stablecoin under prudential oversight in 2018 and now operates as an OCC-regulated national trust company. Walter and Paul first met at Money20/20 in 2019. Less than a year later, PayPal launched crypto with Paxos as its infrastructure provider.

Walter's case is that the GENIUS Act gave the market a definition of a regulated stablecoin, and the infrastructure work it started has kept moving. Issuers can create supply. Demand has to come from applications built by people who understand the buyer's incentives and risks, and he points to treasury as one of the clearest examples.

Highlights

• Paxos has operated under bank-level oversight for a decade. Walter sees that track record as what large, regulated firms look for in an infrastructure partner.
• GENIUS gave the market a working definition of a regulated stablecoin. The CLARITY Act failing its cloture vote hasn't changed the plans of the firms Paxos is building with.
• The reciprocity provision in GENIUS lets a single dollar stablecoin move across jurisdictions without a separate version for each market.
• Issuers create supply. Demand comes from applications that understand the buyer's incentives and risks.

Most of the conversation about banks and digital money assumes banks are on defense. Protecting deposits, watching issuers take share, and moving because they have to. BNY's account of how it got here is a different one.

In episode four of the stablecoin series, Brett Turner, Founder and CEO of Trovata, and Paul Bances, who led the team at PayPal that architected PYUSD, are joined by Nader Souri, who leads corporate and digital banking at BNY. Nader was making the internal case for digital assets six or seven years ago, well before stablecoins became a mainstream topic for banks.

Where he and Paul land is that regulation has stopped being the barrier for corporate treasury. Handing a treasurer a wallet solves nothing unless it connects to the systems already running the function.

• BNY built digital asset custody because institutional clients asked for it, not out of fear of being disintermediated.

• Stablecoins, tokenized deposits, and tokenized money market funds are legally and economically different instruments. They will coexist rather than compete.

• Regulation has stopped being the barrier to treasury adoption. Ubiquity and integration are what is left.

• A wallet on its own solves nothing without integration into the treasury management system, the ERP, and the investment policy.
  

Banks are worried about losing deposits to stablecoins. Ryan Zacharia thinks the fear is legitimate but the reasoning behind it is wrong.

In episode 3 of the stablecoin series, Brett Turner and Paul Bances are joined by Ryan, a partner at FINTOP, which invests in companies serving financial institutions and counts roughly 100 regional and community banks among its strategic LPs. He was also a founding board member of the USDF Consortium.

Ryan's argument is that deposit pricing was already under pressure from new charters and fintechs buying banks. Stablecoins are one more channel, not the root cause. The real corporate risk isn't deposits walking out the door, it's the bank losing its place in the settlement flow.

He also thinks nobody has stress tested the economics of stablecoin issuance itself, and that banks have a better position than they realize. A stablecoin issuer can hold your dollar, but it can't extend your mortgage or your working capital line.

Watch the full episode to hear what he tells banks to start doing.

Most of the stablecoin debate is about yield. Who earns it, whether banks lose deposits, and what the Clarity Act will finally allow. Corporate treasury teams are asking something else entirely.

In part two of the stablecoin series, Brett Turner, Founder and CEO of Trovata, is joined again by Paul Bances, who helped build PayPal's digital currency business and the market for PYUSD. Together they get into why the corporate use case looks nothing like the consumer one. For a treasury team, availability and control of cash matter more than what that cash earns.

Brett shares how Trovata got here, from pioneering bank APIs to walking into Paxos with a thesis he wasn't sure anyone would believe. He and Paul work through intercompany settlement as the first real use case, since it doesn't depend on a willing counterparty or a mature ecosystem. You are moving value between entities you already own.

They also cover why governed access decides everything. Audit trails, controls, and remediation are what turn a promising rail into something a treasury team will actually touch. Eighty percent accuracy is fine for a consumer app. In the enterprise it gets someone fired.

The conversation closes on tokenized assets, where AI and agents fit, and what both of them are watching next.

Stablecoins are all over the news. They still haven't shown up in the day-to-day work of corporate treasury and finance teams.

In the first episode of our stablecoin series, Brett Turner, Founder and CEO of Trovata, is joined by Paul Bances, who helped build PayPal's digital currency business and the market for PYUSD.

Brett opens with the question most treasury and fintech leaders are already asking. If this is as big and game-changing as everyone says, when does it actually arrive? Ten years out? Five? Or sooner than the market expects?

Together they frame what mainstream adoption looks like in corporate finance and corporate treasury, and what needs to change before stablecoins become part of how companies move money.

The future of banking is arriving faster than many banks can keep up. But not all are falling behind. In this episode of Fintech Corner, Trovata Co-founder and CEO Brett Turner is joined by Matt Kelley, Director at FINTOP Capital, for an insider’s look at how banks are navigating AI disruption, data modernization, and the rapid rise of stablecoins. 

You’ll hear why data—not just AI—is the battleground for banking’s next evolution, how smaller institutions are leapfrogging legacy players with flexible tech stacks, and where tokenized deposits, faster payments, and automation are reshaping treasury. Whether you work in corporate treasury, fintech, or banking strategy, this episode delivers a sharp, timely take on the trends shaping finance in real time.

Highlights:

• Why legacy tech isn’t the biggest risk for banks—it’s inertia
• The underdog story: how smaller banks are using fintech to outmaneuver the giants
• A behind-the-scenes look at how stablecoins are shaking up the deposit model
• What treasury teams can learn from bank innovation strategies
• The hidden costs of waiting to modernize—and why they’re compounding

Never be out of the loop on what’s going on in finance, tech, and business. Subscribe to our podcast.

This episode is brought to you by Trovata.

Trovata is reengineering the way companies manage cash. No spreadsheets. No legacy systems. Just real-time visibility, intelligent forecasting and analysis, and seamless money movement—all in one unified platform. As the first cloud-native treasury platform built on corporate banking APIs and AI, Trovata partners with the world’s largest financial institutions to deliver next-gen digital experiences for corporate finance and treasury teams at scale.

Learn more at ⁠www.trovata.io  and follow us on LinkedIn.

Speakers:

About Brett Turner: 

After starting his career as a CPA with the Deloitte audit practice, Brett gained progressive experience in corporate finance and accounting managing SEC reporting for Amazon and then becoming VP of Finance for Worldwide Packets (sold for $300M+ in 2008). Across his last three roles as a startup Co-Founder / CFO, Brett has raised over $100M in equity and venture debt financing while helping create over $500M in shareholder value. Today, he is the founder and CEO of the cash management platform, Trovata. Brett is a Seattle native, with a BA in Finance from Seattle Pacific University.

Connect with Brett on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brett-turner/  

About Matt Kelley:

Matt Kelley is a seasoned banking and fintech strategist serving as Director of the FINTOP Network, where he leads engagement with banks and fintech innovators to accelerate technology adoption and partnerships across a national network of financial institutions. In this role within the FINTOP ecosystem he manages programming, cultivates strategic relationships, and supports investments that help banks modernize and compete in an evolving digital landscape. Kelley brings more than two decades of experience in institutional equities and financial services, including senior roles at Stephens, Piper Jaffray, Sterne Agee (Stifel) and RBC Capital Markets. He holds a Bachelor of Science from Marquette University.

Connect with Matt on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthew-kelley-7189753/

What do you do when you’re the first-ever treasury hire and there’s no system, no team—and no playbook? In this episode of Fintech Corner, Trovata’s Joseph Drambarean sits down with Samma Hollier, newly promoted Senior Treasury Manager at Trupanion, to talk about building treasury from the ground up. From logging into dozens of bank portals and exporting 10,000-line spreadsheets, to implementing automation and creating scalable forecasting, Samma’s journey is packed with hard-won lessons for anyone navigating a lean or growing team.

Samma shares how Trovata helped her go from reactive to proactive, how she shifted out of spreadsheet survival mode, and why building a strong network has been key to every step of her career growth. Whether you’re the first hire or the next, this episode is for anyone ready to build smarter, lead confidently, and scale without burning out.

• What to automate first when you’re doing everything yourself
• How to build a scalable treasury function with limited resources
• Why transaction tags matter (and how AI might make them better)
• From being the first hire to managing a team
• Advice for treasury pros evaluating tools and building their network

Never be out of the loop on what’s going on in finance, tech, and business. Subscribe to our podcast.

This episode is brought to you by Trovata.

Trovata is reengineering the way companies manage cash. No spreadsheets. No legacy systems. Just real-time visibility, intelligent forecasting and analysis, and seamless money movement—all in one unified platform. As the first cloud-native treasury platform built on corporate banking APIs and AI, Trovata partners with the world’s largest financial institutions to deliver next-gen digital experiences for corporate finance and treasury teams at scale.

Learn more at ⁠www.trovata.io  and follow us on LinkedIn.

Speakers:

About Joseph Drambarean

JD is Trovata’s Chief Technology Officer. Previously, he was Director of Strategy with the mobile app design firm, Punchkick Interactive. There, he was responsible for developing roadmaps and executing global product launches for brands like Marriott International, Allstate Insurance, and Harley-Davidson. He later served as a Senior Manager in Capital One’s Digital Product Management team. Joseph is a Chicago native, and graduated with a BA in Political Science & Economics from Loyola University of Chicago.

Connect with Joseph on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jdrambarean/

About Samma Hollier:

Samma Hollier is the Senior Treasury Manager at Trupanion, where she leads enterprise-wide cash management, investment strategy, and financial risk oversight for a $1BN revenue pet insurance company. With over eight years of experience in corporate treasury—including key roles at Starbucks—Samma brings deep expertise in liquidity planning, capital markets, and banking infrastructure. She is passionate about optimizing financial operations and fostering high-performing teams to support strategic growth.

Connect with Samma on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/samma-hollier/

Imagine if you could hand off your treasury workflows to a team of AI agents. That’s exactly what Kyle Fisher is working toward at CSG. In this episode of Fintech Corner, Trovata’s Joseph Drambarean sits down with Kyle to explore how automation and AI are transforming treasury, from the way data flows to how decisions get made. Kyle shares how he automated hours of manual work, creating better visibility across systems, and why his free time is now spent experimenting with AI tools. From building trust in agents to redefining the treasurer’s role, this episode is packed with all the big questions that forward-thinking treasury teams should be asking today.

Highlights:

• Learn about the use cases and concerns around AI in treasury and how they’re evolving
• Hear why Kyle believes treasury is shifting from its day-to-day activities to system design
• Understand the importance of guardrails, data quality, and AI governance
• Get Kyle’s advice on evaluating and implementing new treasury systems the right way

Never be out of the loop on what’s going on in finance, tech, and business. Subscribe to our podcast.

This episode is brought to you by Trovata.

Trovata is reengineering the way companies manage cash. No spreadsheets. No legacy systems. Just real-time visibility, intelligent forecasting and analysis, and seamless money movement—all in one unified platform. As the first cloud-native treasury platform built on corporate banking APIs and AI, Trovata partners with the world’s largest financial institutions to deliver next-gen digital experiences for corporate finance and treasury teams at scale.

Learn more at ⁠www.trovata.io  and follow us on LinkedIn.

Speakers:

About Joseph Drambarean

JD is Trovata’s Chief Technology Officer. Previously, he was Director of Strategy with the mobile app design firm, Punchkick Interactive. There, he was responsible for developing roadmaps and executing global product launches for brands like Marriott International, Allstate Insurance, and Harley-Davidson. He later served as a Senior Manager in Capital One’s Digital Product Management team. Joseph is a Chicago native, and graduated with a BA in Political Science & Economics from Loyola University of Chicago.

Connect with Joseph on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jdrambarean/

About Kyle Fisher:

Kyle Fisher is CSG’s Senior Manager of Treasury & Investor Relations and has 7 years of experience in the Treasury space. He has held Manager and Analyst roles at 4 other publicly traded companies prior to joining CSG in 2024. Kyle has worked in several global corporations supporting all aspects of Treasury from TMS and ERP system implementations, to global credit card programs and credit facility refinancing. Kyle has lived across the US, graduating from the University of Wyoming, and now lives in Denver, CO.

Connect with Kyle on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kyle-fisher-821470b4/

What does it take to stand up a modern treasury function—solo—at a global company fueled by M&A? Jessica Siu, VP of Treasury at Authentic Brands Group (ABG), shares how she’s building treasury from the ground up. With global icons like Reebok, Champion, Nautica, Lucky Brand, Sports Illustrated, Forever 21, David Beckham, and Shaquille O’Neal under ABG’s umbrella, she’s focused on building scalable treasury infrastructure to power the company’s rapid expansion and global partnerships.

Listen to this episode to hear how she designed a strategic rollout plan, prioritized quick wins, and implemented a lightweight system with Trovata to manage complexity at scale. Jessica also explains how treasury can support broader AI initiatives across the business—from driving clean, structured data to integrating with the larger finance tech stack. Whether you're navigating growth, M&A, or looking to modernize your tech, Jessica’s story offers a practical roadmap for building treasury with long-term impact.

Highlights:

• Hear Jessica’s advice for stepping into a first-ever treasury role without any existing SOPs or infrastructure
• Explore how she embraced being scrappy—while laying the groundwork to evolve from reactive to strategic, scalable treasury
• Discover how she evaluated and implemented the right treasury system to get up and running quickly
• Learn how treasury can support a finance department’s digital transformation while contributing to broader enterprise AI initiatives
• Get her take on career growth, risk-taking, and knowing when it’s time to make the leap into something new

Never be out of the loop on what’s going on in finance, tech, and business. Subscribe to our podcast.

This episode is brought to you by Trovata.

Trovata is reengineering the way companies manage cash. No spreadsheets. No legacy systems. Just real-time visibility, intelligent forecasting and analysis, and seamless money movement—all in one unified platform. As the first cloud-native treasury platform built on corporate banking APIs and AI, Trovata partners with the world’s largest financial institutions to deliver next-gen digital experiences for corporate finance and treasury teams at scale.

Learn more at ⁠www.trovata.io  and follow us on LinkedIn.

Speakers:

About Joseph Drambarean:

JD is Trovata’s Chief Technology Officer. Previously, he was Director of Strategy with the mobile app design firm, Punchkick Interactive. There, he was responsible for developing roadmaps and executing global product launches for brands like Marriott International, Allstate Insurance, and Harley-Davidson. He later served as a Senior Manager in Capital One’s Digital Product Management team. Joseph is a Chicago native, and graduated with a BA in Political Science & Economics from Loyola University of Chicago.

Connect with Joseph on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jdrambarean/

About Jessica Siu:

Jessica Siu is a Treasury leader with over a decade of global experience across consumer retail and technology industries. In her current role as the VP of Treasury at Authentic Brands Group, the world’s leading owner of sports, lifestyle, and entertainment intellectual property, Jessica is building the Treasury function from the ground up. Prior to ABG, Jessica was at Dropbox, Columbia Sportswear, and Gap. Her areas of expertise include cash management, investments, capital markets, FX, and insurance. Guided by a belief in purposeful leadership, she empowers teams to innovate and adapt in dynamic, fast-paced environments.  Jessica holds a B.S. in Business Administration, with a Finance concentration, from the California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo. 

Connect with Jessica on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/siujessica/

AI and people together: driving the future of treasury. Filmed live at Trovata’s AFP booth, this episode of Fintech Corner brings together Brett Turner, Founder & CEO of Trovata, and Greg Fortuna, head of State Street’s GlobalLINK division, for a candid look at how fintech and data are transforming treasury.

They explore how banks and fintechs are collaborating to deliver real-time insights, why data readiness is the foundation of successful innovation, and how digital assets and 24/7 settlement could reshape the future of finance.

Highlights:

• Hear how State Street is reimagining treasury through fintech partnerships and data innovation
• Learn how banks and fintechs are collaborating to deliver real-time insights and liquidity
• Discover why data readiness is the foundation for adopting future technologies
• Understand how AI and automation are accelerating decision-making—complementing human expertise
• Explore how stablecoins and digital assets could unlock the next leap in finance

Never be out of the loop on what’s going on in finance, tech, and business. Subscribe to our podcast here.

This episode is brought to you by Trovata. 

Trovata is reengineering the way companies manage cash. No spreadsheets. No legacy systems. Just real-time visibility, intelligent forecasting and analysis, and seamless money movement—all in one unified platform. As the first cloud-native treasury platform built on corporate banking APIs and AI, Trovata partners with the world’s largest financial institutions to deliver next-gen digital experiences for corporate finance and treasury teams at scale.

Learn more at www.trovata.io and follow us on LinkedIn.

About Brett Turner: 

After starting his career as a CPA with the Deloitte audit practice, Brett gained progressive experience in corporate finance and accounting managing SEC reporting for Amazon and then becoming VP of Finance for Worldwide Packets (sold for $300M+ in 2008). Across his last three roles as a startup Co-Founder / CFO, Brett has raised over $100M in equity and venture debt financing while helping create over $500M in shareholder value. Today, he is the founder and CEO of the cash management platform, Trovata. Brett is a Seattle native, with a BA in Finance from Seattle Pacific University.

Connect with Brett on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brett-turner/  

About Greg Fortuna:

Gregory P. Fortuna is a Senior Managing Director and Head of GlobalLINK. Prior to this, he was Head of the GlobalLink Solutions division and responsible for all innovation and growth businesses across the organization. In this capacity, he led all aspects of Product Development, Sales, Operations and Technology; managing the development and deployment of pioneering client solutions multiple assets classes. Greg also envisioned and developed Fund Connect, a first of its kind money market portal in 2001 and more recently the ground-breaking LINK (formerly GlobalLink Digital) - with a goal of creating a unique distribution platform with integrated multi-asset class execution management, cutting-edge analytics, post-trade settlement as well as proprietary liquidity, financing, and trading solutions.

Connect with Greg on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregory-fortuna-cfa-3248237/