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Rob Rubin (00:00):

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(00:25):

Hello everyone and welcome to The Banking & Payments Show, a Behind the Numbers podcast from EMARKETER made possible by Nielsen. Today is September 16th, 2025. I'm Rob Rubin, head of business development at EMARKETER and your host. Today, we're diving into a topic that has come up a lot in conversations in banking, payments and retail, stablecoins.

(00:49):

Whether you think of them as the future of money, a regulatory headache, or just the next buzzword in crypto, stablecoins are being talked about all over the place, particularly on Capitol Hill in boardrooms and across the payments' industry. So to help break it all down, I'm joined by three EMARKETER analysts, each bringing a different perspective. First, we have Tiffani Montez, principal banking analyst. She's been following how financial institutions are grappling with the rise of digital assets. Grace Broadbent, who focuses in on payments will help us unpack what stablecoins mean for networks, processors, and the rails that keep money moving. And finally, Suzy Davidkhanian, VP of content who covers retail and consumer behavior will ground us in how or if everyday people might actually use stablecoins in their day-to-day lives. I'm going to tell everybody who's listening that normally we're all Zoomed together and today we're all sitting around the table together.

Tiffani Montez (01:52):

Secrets out.

Rob Rubin (01:52):

So I'm really excited that we're actually looking at each other and getting to react to each other. So I'm really excited about it. And it's also the only time, I think in 60 episodes-ish, I've had three guests at the same time. So let's keep it under control.

Tiffani Montez (02:10):

We'll try.

Rob Rubin (02:11):

How are you guys doing?

Tiffani Montez (02:11):

... 60 times to get this right in person and 60 times for you to invite Suzy.

Suzy Davidkhanian (02:16):

I can't even... I'm excited.

Rob Rubin (02:18):

I can't even believe-

Suzy Davidkhanian (02:19):

... so excited to be here.

Rob Rubin (02:21):

I've been angling for a way to get you on.

Suzy Davidkhanian (02:24):

Well, thank you for making that happen.

Rob Rubin (02:25):

I didn't think... If you asked me six months ago if a topic like stablecoin could get Suzy on a podcast, I probably would've said no.

Suzy Davidkhanian (02:32):

Well, Marcus, the Behind the Numbers does these predictions and so I had a stablecoin one, which he thought was crazy, but now he knows it was not crazy.

Rob Rubin (02:41):

You were not crazy. Well, let's jump into it. Stablecoins have been coming up a lot in conversations lately. So why don't we start with the big picture. Why now? What's driving all the buzz here?

Grace Broadbent (02:53):

It was really the election of Trump that really kind of started this new hype cycle, you can say. He courted the crypto industry overall aggressively during his election cycle. His own family has started their own crypto ventures. They've become heavily involved in the space and within, I think his first month in office, he signed an executive order promoting stable coins to call for regulation to be developed around stable coins and to just promote development of stable coins overall. And from there it's really taken off.

Rob Rubin (03:29):

But it feels like a leap, right? We're going from something was the Trump gold stable coin. And even though it was a digital asset, it felt like it was a collection piece. Like stable coins were things people would collect, like you would collect coins. It was like a new version of coin collecting, but now we're talking about payment rails.

Tiffani Montez (03:49):

Well, I think it's also, there's been a lot going on in the background that people just weren't talking about. Grace, remind me, I know BofA for example, and others have probably been working in the background to build things and just not talking about it or waiting for the regulation to catch up to what they are seeing a need to be. And so now that need is there, I think we're starting to see significant movement. And I think at that point we're going to see where novelty shakes out and where there becomes real need to solve problems with the technology.

Suzy Davidkhanian (04:20):

Well, and on the retailer side, the difference is we have to make the distinction between crypto and stable coin, which is pegged to a dollar. So from a retailer perspective, it's easier to manage and handle that and make sure that they understand cash coming in and cash coming out. Cash in quotes is equal and that they can keep track of it in the same way versus a crypto coin where it's more like a market value that changes and is so volatile. So that's helped on the retailer side. I think the mainstream to fringe piece is still a little bit of a question mark because it's so much in the headlines tacked to so many people that some folks might not trust as much, right? And so there is a trust gap potentially on the consumer side.

Rob Rubin (05:05):

But it's tagged to the dollar. But it does increase or decrease in value.

Suzy Davidkhanian (05:10):

Like currency does. It's the same.

Rob Rubin (05:13):

I guess, but using a dollar-

(05:15):

[inaudible 00:05:16].

(05:16):

It's not as volatile and it's not as obvious when you're buying goods, whether the dollar is up or down. I don't go to the grocery store and determine which currency I'm going to use based on my principle.

Grace Broadbent (05:28):

But if it's pegged correctly to the US dollar for example, you really should not notice a difference at all. As you said, we don't notice when the US dollar changes ever so slightly because of inflation or whatever it may be.

Suzy Davidkhanian (05:40):

Or your interest rate. It's not like you pay attention to your interest rate to decide where you're moving money in your bank.

Grace Broadbent (05:46):

And that's why they are pegging them to the US dollar versus a stable coin can technically be pegged to any asset. It can be pegged to gold, it can be pegged to other currencies. It can be pegged to any random object at all.

Suzy Davidkhanian (06:00):

Monopoly money.

Grace Broadbent (06:00):

Yeah, monopoly money.

Suzy Davidkhanian (06:01):

Yay.

Grace Broadbent (06:03):

But that's why it's the U.S. dollar because it's trying to make it be truly a digital version of the U.S. dollar.

Suzy Davidkhanian (06:10):

As stable as possible.

Grace Broadbent (06:11):

Yeah.

Suzy Davidkhanian (06:11):

Yeah. And the thing is NFTs from before, everybody was talking about NFTs, but that wasn't really pegged to any money, right? That was like a fun... Kind of how you started off. It was like a fun thing to have a digital "asset" that was more like artwork. You never know what's going to happen. So this is completely different.

Rob Rubin (06:30):

So when you buy a stable coin, do you get one coin for each dollar?

Tiffani Montez (06:34):

Yes, for most of them, yes. And if you transfer them from one person to another, it still holds that value.

Rob Rubin (06:40):

So then how much does stable coins future come down to regulation? Because if I'm giving a company my money and it's worth... I think it's something that I can use as currency, what protects me from them not holding my money?

Suzy Davidkhanian (06:55):

It's kind of like a bank, right?

Rob Rubin (06:57):

Right. So what's the regulation? So if Amazon comes out with a stable coin, who makes sure that if Amazon sells a billion dollars worth of stable coin, is there a government regulatory body that says, "Amazon, you have to keep a certain amount of that available?"

Suzy Davidkhanian (07:13):

The experts will tell you about that piece. But on the retailer front, there are lots of loyalty apps where you load it with money. Just think about Starbucks, you load it with money, the money just sits in their app, it's dollars, it's U.S. dollars in America at least, and it just sits there. So if they fold... Or gift cards, right? You pay money to get a gift card. And so now they have an IOU. If the company folds, you lose the money. So I imagine stable coin is something similar.

Tiffani Montez (07:37):

Yes. Whoever issues the stable coin is who is the one that's guaranteeing that money. So if you as a bank for example, issue a stable coin, then you are responsible for that stable coin. If you're PayPal and you issue a stable coin, you as PayPal are responsible for that stable coin.

Rob Rubin (07:53):

Right, but the bank issues the coin, but they also pay to an insurance fund. The FDIC, they all collectively do so that if that bank fails, the government-

Tiffani Montez (08:06):

Up to a certain point.

Rob Rubin (08:06):

Your money is protected up to a certain point. So my point is if somebody like-

Suzy Davidkhanian (08:11):

If an Amazon issues their own currency or Starbucks.

Rob Rubin (08:16):

Who's regulating that?

Suzy Davidkhanian (08:18):

So I thought the GENIUS Act, right?

Grace Broadbent (08:20):

Yeah. So that's why they're making regulation right now and that's why it can't be mainstream yet. And the GENIUS Act helped that and there'll be more regulation to come to make sure that if you buy a stable coin and say it's pegged to the US dollar, there's actually something backing that in a bank.

(08:37):

If you remember two years ago, there was a huge stable coin drama. It was I think called Terra, I need to double check that name. But the Terra became unpegged from the dollar because the company said they had all this backing but they didn't. So it went under, caused a huge drama, caused a lot of people to lose money, but that's why regulation is now. So if a company issues a stable coin, they have to, the government regulatory bodies make sure that there is actually proper backing to that.

Rob Rubin (09:09):

Okay.

Grace Broadbent (09:10):

So that's what we're working on right now is getting that regulatory piece in place to protect consumers.

Suzy Davidkhanian (09:17):

And if a retailer is issuing it, I'm sure they have to show as many assets around whatever they're issuing, right? It's kind of like how vendors get paid. They have a 30, 60, 90 day vendors like clothing vendors or whatever goods vendors. I'm sure it'll be something similar to that.

Rob Rubin (09:31):

Everybody feels so confident.

Suzy Davidkhanian (09:34):

It was my prediction, it's what landed me here. So I'm going to keep going.

Rob Rubin (09:39):

It have to iterate and it's going to be some scary things because we haven't thought of everything.

Suzy Davidkhanian (09:45):

Absolutely. Yeah.

Rob Rubin (09:47):

I want to talk about... Because part of it is like why do we need this? So I want to ask it in two different ways. First, I want to ask why do we need this compared to the payments ecosystem that we currently have? The rails, visa, ACH, even real time payments, those are all payment rails. Why do we need this one? And then what about consumers? Maybe you're going to convince me why the industry needs it, but I still... I'm wondering why the consumers need it.

Grace Broadbent (10:15):

Really big picture, stable coins combine the best aspects of digital currencies and traditional fiat currency. So if on the fiat side, you ensure the stability, all the things. On the digital currency side, you get the real time payment speed, you get the availability 24/7, you get the low cost, you get the end-to-end traceability. All the benefits of a traditional cryptocurrency are combined within the stability of the dollar. And that's kind of the dream of the stable coin.

Rob Rubin (10:49):

All right, so I want to get to the consumer thing, but I'm dying to know what is Visa and MasterCard... What are they going to do about that?

Suzy Davidkhanian (10:57):

They're freaking out probably.

Tiffani Montez (10:58):

Yeah.

Grace Broadbent (10:59):

Well, they are trying to become part of it, is really the answer. Because they are probably freaking out and saying if we don't develop our own stable coin infrastructure and become part of it, then we're going to get left behind.

Rob Rubin (11:12):

Honestly, they had a good run, right?

Grace Broadbent (11:17):

They still do. They still do.

Tiffani Montez (11:17):

They're doing well, but they've actually inserted themselves to Grace's point pretty quickly and they're trying to put the technology in place so they're not pushed out of the ecosystem. Do I think they're going to get pushed out of the ecosystem? Absolutely not. But they're going to have to figure out in a new world where are they going to play and how are they going to make money. But to Grace's point, this is really all about cost and speed and that is actually, if you think about stable coin under that context, it does solve real needs. It's just whether or not financial institutions, retailers, and everyone can figure out how do you use the technology to actually solve a problem? Not just say something is sexy and we should all have stable coin and therefore we should support it.

Rob Rubin (11:58):

It's funny because maybe Visa, MasterCard, the rails sort of-

Tiffani Montez (12:04):

Going off the rails right now.

Rob Rubin (12:05):

Go off the rail, but it seems like maybe then the issuers get squeezed. The bank issuers that work with Visa and MasterCard and issue cards, are they going to issue stable coin cards?

Tiffani Montez (12:19):

I think that's what they're trying to figure out.

Grace Broadbent (12:20):

Yeah, that's what they're figuring out right now. It was reported in May... Nothing's official yet, but it was reported in May that a consortium of the largest bank, so JPMorgan, Bank of America, Citi, Wells-

Rob Rubin (12:33):

Early warning, right?

Grace Broadbent (12:34):

Yes, are working with early warning services and the clearing house to develop a bank-backed stable coin to all come together and develop one that can then be used within banks and transferred easily.

Rob Rubin (12:47):

All right.

Tiffani Montez (12:47):

And I would also say that I've had a couple of conversations with credit unions who were also exploring issuing their own stable coin.

Rob Rubin (12:55):

Poor credit unions, right?

Tiffani Montez (12:57):

Yeah. But this goes back to the need. What are you trying to solve by issuing a stable coin to your member base? How big is your member base? What is the age group-

Rob Rubin (13:08):

How old is your member base-

Tiffani Montez (13:08):

... of your member base? And not your average age. We like to use this average age of your... Actually the real question is how many of your consumers are over the age of 55 years old? And if you tell me it's 60% or 70%, you might want to think... You really should just be focusing on trying to get Gen Z. Stable coin may or may not get you there. I don't know. Who knows? But so what are you trying to solve? What are you trying to get people to do? Are you trying to just get them to transfer money to each other? Because if you issue your own coin, can your coin be used to send to somebody else? If not, you're going to be stuck playing the P2P payment game.

Rob Rubin (13:43):

Or businesses going to make deals. Your coins are good with me, my coins are good with you.

Tiffani Montez (13:49):

Yeah.

Suzy Davidkhanian (13:49):

Well, I think the platforms will do that, right? But if you start to buy into the Walmart or Starbucks coin, technically at least in the immediate future, it'll just be usable there.

Tiffani Montez (14:00):

Yeah. So that becomes a challenge, right? So we're going to have like 32 million coins.

Rob Rubin (14:06):

Let's jump to the why do consumers need this?

Suzy Davidkhanian (14:09):

Well, I think it depends on... I know you mean the end consumer, but I'm going to start with the middle person consumer, which is the retailer, right? The retailer needs this because they're getting squeezed, there's so much money in transaction fees. So using a stable coin, assuming that they can convince people to buy their stable coins, right? So let's put that aside for now. If they are able to get that going, they're going to save money on the transaction fees. Right now some of the mama pop shops here show you if you pay cash, it's $4. If you use your credit card, it's 4,25. I mean, that's a very clear indication for a consumer to understand the savings of not using their credit card. So there's that, but there's also a new cash revenue stream, right? Retailers are borrowing against their potential consumers by getting everybody to give them money. So they issue stable coins. So now they have money that's floating that they can use in a different way, right? So there are a lot of upsides for a retailer.

Rob Rubin (15:04):

I totally get it for businesses. I'm just trying to understand why would I want to give Amazon $500 of my money in advance?

Suzy Davidkhanian (15:14):

I mean, you kind of do. You give them your membership fee, right? And if you give them your membership fee upfront, the hundred and whatever it is, it's cheaper than if you do monthly. So we do these kind of things of giving money upfront-

Rob Rubin (15:25):

But it's different.

Tiffani Montez (15:26):

Well, if you think about it, people are spending hundreds if not thousands of dollars a month at Amazon. Even just in purchases, groceries.

Grace Broadbent (15:35):

I do think we're being positive about this, but I do think consumers are going to take some convincing. It makes a lot of sense to use stable coins right now for peer-to-peer payments, deposits, transfers, things like that. But on the retail side, they will need convincing. And whether it's Amazon, it's part of their loyalty program to use it and you get benefits that way or other kind of discounts or rewards.

Rob Rubin (15:59):

I would rather buy the stable coin at checkout. So I don't want to give you stable... I don't want to give you a thousand dollars of my money in advance, but when I buy something, I want the transaction to be, I buy it with my dollars, I make it stable coin and then-

Suzy Davidkhanian (16:15):

I don't think you would need it for that, right? I think that takes away from the idea of loyalty. Let's use Starbucks because Starbucks has an app that people load money in.

Tiffani Montez (16:23):

Are you listening Starbucks?

Rob Rubin (16:24):

Yeah.

Suzy Davidkhanian (16:25):

I think it's at any minute now because they had an NFT and it didn't work.

Rob Rubin (16:29):

Is it called Starbucks?

Suzy Davidkhanian (16:30):

Possibly.

Tiffani Montez (16:30):

[inaudible 00:16:32].

Grace Broadbent (16:32):

It'll be a missed opportunity if not.

Rob Rubin (16:33):

Taco Bills.

Grace Broadbent (16:34):

Yeah.

Tiffani Montez (16:35):

Star coin.

Rob Rubin (16:36):

No, Starbucks.

Suzy Davidkhanian (16:37):

Starbucks.

Tiffani Montez (16:39):

Yeah, but what about the coin?

Rob Rubin (16:40):

Sweet green?

Suzy Davidkhanian (16:41):

Okay, back to the consumer-

Tiffani Montez (16:44):

Back to helping them promote their new stable coin.

Suzy Davidkhanian (16:46):

No, but I think it's ingenious and Grace is 1000% right. If you don't let the consumer understand why this is important to them to do it, it's not going to work. So it has to be a very seamless, there are lots of vendors that are trying to help with that, right? And the PayPals of the world that are working through it. So it has to be a seamless at checkout. You have to give me value. You have to show me that, okay, you're saving money Starbucks by not running credit cards. What value is that transferring for me? And then Starbucks is not the right example for this, but the returns are immediate. You buy a address, you don't love it, you return it, you have to wait for the credit card to reimburse you. There's that moment in time. And for people that are paycheck to paycheck, that could be a reason to use a stable coin.

Rob Rubin (17:29):

I don't want to take it too far, but Dunkin' Dough.

Suzy Davidkhanian (17:32):

[inaudible 00:17:34].

Tiffani Montez (17:35):

He's seeing your Dunkin' Donuts over here. We got coffee on the table.

Grace Broadbent (17:39):

[inaudible 00:17:39] Starbucks.

Tiffani Montez (17:39):

Who's going to go first? Dunkin Dough or Starbucks?

Rob Rubin (17:42):

I can't help.

Tiffani Montez (17:44):

Love it. You should have been in marketing.

Suzy Davidkhanian (17:46):

You can contact Rob Rubin, Dunkin Donuts and Starbucks for help with your marketing.

Rob Rubin (17:50):

You're naming [inaudible 00:17:51].

Suzy Davidkhanian (17:52):

Well, and I mean, it's all about a marketing play too for a retailer.

Rob Rubin (17:56):

What is the story? What's the story for every day... What is the story retailers are going to tell shoppers?

Grace Broadbent (18:03):

You can tell from my cup on the table, I went to Starbucks this morning and I automatically add $25 every time I go to the app. I don't think about it, it just forces me to, it says, "Oh, you don't have enough money in your card, reload $25." And they just capture you. I truly have never thought about it once in my life. I'm just like, yes, this is what you do at Starbucks. If you really-

Suzy Davidkhanian (18:23):

And you get better-

Grace Broadbent (18:24):

You get better points. And if it's ingrained in the mobile app experience, I know I'm getting points. I'm not thinking about the $25 reload. So we're already doing it to some extent.

Suzy Davidkhanian (18:34):

Yes, agreed. It's just like we're moving... Instead of it being your dollars being in a fictitious app sort of thing, it's like you've moved them through stablecoin. Now I don't understand how a consumer will decide like, oh, I'm not putting my $25 in, I'm buying stablecoin. That piece, I'm not as clear on.

Rob Rubin (18:49):

What about stablecoin credit, right? A lot of people buy groceries with credit cards because they don't have enough money to pay for their groceries these days. So are they going to buy stablecoin credit? So you're talking about you have enough money and disposable income to be able to not even think about putting $25 on Starbucks, but that's not everyone.

Grace Broadbent (19:11):

Yeah. I mean, I should probably think about it more, but yes.

Rob Rubin (19:13):

Right? So it's going to give great benefit to people that have the disposable income to float money.

Grace Broadbent (19:22):

Yeah, because right now-

Rob Rubin (19:23):

What about the people who can't?

Grace Broadbent (19:24):

Right now, yeah, there's no credit alternative. It would really be a replacement to a debit card at a retail store.

Suzy Davidkhanian (19:31):

I don't know that the paycheck to paycheck folks are the ones that are thinking about crypto. I think they have other things to worry about. And that grocery stores have high and low end consumers and so they will still be able to grab a market that makes sense for them. Grocery just might not be the right place. It has to be a retailer that you frequent enough so you don't feel like you're leaving money on the table forever.

(19:58):

And that if you think about back to the marketing question, you have to talk about it in terms of the benefits to you, not the features, right? Nobody cares about... You retailer are going to get more money back because you're not going to pay the transaction fees or you're going to clear it faster. You have to tell the consumer, you're going to get more rewards. You're going to get access to things that you wouldn't have otherwise.

Tiffani Montez (20:20):

You're going to get free shipping or-

Suzy Davidkhanian (20:24):

Yeah. Whatever that next level of... Use the QR code at the store, so you can pay direct without having to go through some sort of process.

Rob Rubin (20:33):

Prime for your whole family, not just you.

Suzy Davidkhanian (20:35):

Correct. That might be, that's how they're maybe starting it off. That's how they're teeing you up.

Rob Rubin (20:40):

No, I get it. I just want to sort of close it out with this question of when we're all sitting here and we will all be sitting here in a year from now, what's the headline about stable coins and payments? Did it do anything? Do we have Starbucks and Dunkin' Dough?

Suzy Davidkhanian (20:57):

I actually think that there will be some retailers that come out with it, but from a headline perspective, I think it'll be more around... It'll be part of a wallet series, right? And we've talked about this so many different times in so many different ways. Stable coin will be another component of the wallet. An agentic solution will come and tell you like, oh, at Amazon, you're better off paying with their Amazon stable coin than your dollars. But at Starbucks, you're better off-putting money into the system, whatever it is. But I think it'll be an extra platform that will help. It'll be an AI, an AI headline.

Rob Rubin (21:33):

It's an extension there there's technology now that helps banks determine what's the cheapest rail to process different things at.

Tiffani Montez (21:36):

Yeah. And I think that's probably where the focus will be over the next year. So I think right now people are still trying to understand the technology and what it will mean to issue your own stable coin and what the opportunities are. I think people are going to start to internalize it over the next year. And next year, I think people will focus more on trying to solve real problems. And I think when I think about real problems, they're what Grace said earlier, it's speed and its cost.

(22:01):

And so where can I gain the most speed and the most cost? And so I don't think we'll necessarily hear a lot about the customer facing aspect, but we'll start to hear how it's used in the background to solve payment, we'll call it payment problems.

Grace Broadbent (22:14):

Yeah, I agree with that. And I think the biggest headline in a year from now will probably be that the largest banks are launching some sort of their own solution-

Rob Rubin (22:23):

Right, they don't want to get Venmoed.

Grace Broadbent (22:24):

Yes.

Tiffani Montez (22:27):

I use Zelle.

Rob Rubin (22:29):

I mean, Zelle-

Grace Broadbent (22:30):

Zelle is bank owned. It's basically going to be a Zelle version. It's through the owners of Zelle are creating this, and I think that's the direction we're headed. I don't think a year from now every single person's going to be using stable coins everywhere, but I think on the development side, there will be a lot of improvement in the next year.

Tiffani Montez (22:47):

I really hope we're not using 32 million different types of stable coins next year.

Rob Rubin (22:50):

This is so confusing.

Grace Broadbent (22:51):

No, it's unrealistic.

Suzy Davidkhanian (22:52):

Well, I mean, it's like how there are so many different loyalty points, right? And if you use the credit card on this, you might also get the Rakuten. I think gamification is something that consumers are accustomed to and this might just be part of that as well in some ways.

Tiffani Montez (23:07):

Agreed.

Rob Rubin (23:08):

I think we should be figuring out how we can do more of these podcasts around a table together and not on Zoom.

Tiffani Montez (23:14):

I agree. Let's not wait to episode 100.

Grace Broadbent (23:17):

Yeah.

Rob Rubin (23:18):

I want to thank everyone for listening to The Banking & Payments Show made possible by Nielsen. Also, thank you to our studio team that puts these episodes together. Our next episode is on October 14th, so be sure to check it out. See you then. Bye everybody.

Tiffani Montez (23:33):

Thanks, bye.

Suzy Davidkhanian (23:34):

Bye.

Grace Broadbent (23:34):

Bye.