‘Banks can hugely benefit from blockchain’: Linda Jenkinson
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Penny Crossman (00:11):
Hi, I’m Penny Crossman, tech editor at American Banker, and I’m here at the On-Chain Executive Summit with Linda Jenkinson, who is chairman and CEO of Vast Holdings, which is the holding company for Vast Bank. And she’s also vice chair of USBC. Welcome, Linda. When you think about the world of on – chain finance, what are you most bullish about?
Linda Jenkinson (00:36):
On-chain finance, well, if you look at… I think stablecoin has been an incredible use case to demonstrate that blockchain is a technology that the financial services system hugely can benefit from it. So a lot of people think crypto and blockchain, it’s all about sort of Bitcoin or what some people think are exotic. The reality is it’s demonstrated that it’s a superior technology and we can use that to transform the financial services industry for the betterment of everyone who’s using it today, turn it into twenty four seven, but with the protection of the financial services industry. So it’s incredibly exciting.
Penny Crossman (01:21):
What obstacles or challenges do you see traditional banks facing as they try to enter this world?
Linda Jenkinson (01:30):
And you’ll see this if you research it today, banks have been completely hampered, in fact, prevented to innovate by a burdensome regulatory environment. Moving from regulation and principle and enabling the banks to deliver within that to a very, very detailed and prescriptive approach. And that’s been in existence for more than 20 years now. So the banks have been trained not to innovate. And so there’s a lot of fear around that. And I think what’s happening today is that the current view is we want the financial services industry in the US to be global leader. In order to do that, all elements of the financial system have to embrace innovation. Otherwise, they’re going to be at risk in the future. So I think the culture moving from what you would call a risk avoidance culture to a risk management culture is a major, major change to say, “I’m going to bank anyone and look at their behavior and manage the risk,” rather than say, “Actually, you don’t fit and I’m not going to bank you.
(02:42):
” So it’s at the very core a transformation that’s going to happen and that’s the journey that we’ve started.
Penny Crossman (02:54):
And if you had to make one prediction about the future of on – chain finance and the digital asset ecosystem, what would that be?
Linda Jenkinson (03:01):
Well, I’d say it’s going to change a lot faster than we expect, but also a lot slower than what we expect. And that’s always the way with these new innovative technologies. And you’ve also got the advent of AI, which also is another enabler. But once again, just like blockchain took a decade to be ready for the financial system, how do we really get AI to be applied in commercial? Once again, it’s going to happen fast, but it’s going to happen slower than you expect and we don’t really know what that balance is.
Penny Crossman (03:38):
Fair enough. Linda Jenkinson, thanks for joining us today.
Linda Jenkinson (03:41):
It’s a pleasure. Thank you.
Penny Crossman (03:43):
Thanks for watching.
