In This Newsletter
FinTech at the Milken Institute Global Conference
Digital Asset Market Structure
US Payments Modernization
FinTech at the Milken Institute Global Conference
At the 2025 Milken Institute Global Conference, three dynamic public sessions spotlighted the evolving intersections of technology, finance, and policy.
In the two-part session “A New Innovation Economy: A Conversation with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang,” Huang joined Milken Institute Chairman Mike Milken for a one-on-one discussion, exploring the accelerating role of artificial intelligence (AI) in transforming how economies function, from chip design and infrastructure to education and global competitiveness. Huang emphasized the shift toward “AI factories,” which are specialized computing infrastructure designed to create value from data ingestion to training, fine-tuning, and high-volume inference. The primary product is intelligence that drives decisions, automation, and new AI solutions. He positioned AI as a central driver of the next wave of economic output.
“A New Innovation Economy Part 2: AI and the Economy Transformation and Disruption” continued the dialogue in a panel moderated by Richard Lui, anchor and journalist, MSNBC and NBC News. Panelists included Lareina Yee, senior partner and director of the McKinsey Global Institute; Jason Alan Snyder, chief AI officer, Momentum Worldwide; Mark Minevich, strategic partner, Mayfield; and Roger Ferguson, chief investment officer and director, Red Cell Partners. Together, they examined AI’s projected economic gains by 2030. One panelist estimated $4.4 trillion; two others estimated closer to $20 trillion; and the fourth noted, “We will not be able to accurately quantify the gains as the tech will become so diffuse.” Panelists underscored that AI deployment is still at a "first base" stage, with only 5 percent of enterprises truly “AI-first.” They also discussed the need for an “Apollo Project-level response for workforce reskilling” in response to a “Cambrian explosion” of AI.
In the session “Money, Access, and Scale: The Evolution of Financial Technology,” Nicole Valentine, director of FinTech at the Milken Institute, moderated a global discussion on how FinTech is unlocking economic mobility. Speakers included Matthew Oppenheimer, CEO of Remitly; Trevor Traina, chief business officer at Tools for Humanity; Jalak Jobanputra, founder and managing partner of Future\Perfect Ventures; Ladi Delano, co-CEO and chairman of Moove; and Ashley Bell, CEO of Ready Life and founder of Redemption Holding Company. The conversation focused on the structural issues that are preventing homeownership and holding back entrepreneurs, and the financial innovations closing those gaps. Delano stated, “We’re not just financing vehicles—we’re tackling youth unemployment by giving young people a chance to own income-generating assets, often for the first time.” The panelists raised solutions, from biometric identity that reaches “the last mile” of consumers to new lending data models that enable asset formation.
Digital Asset Market Structure
The session “Crypto’s Wild Ride: The Great Debate” brought together policymakers and innovators to assess crypto’s trajectory amid major market shifts and growing regulatory clarity. Valentine moderated a debate-style format featuring Caroline Pham, acting chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission; Mary-Catherine Lader, president and COO of Uniswap Labs; Ivan Soto-Wright, CEO and cofounder of MoonPay; Dante Disparte, chief strategy officer and head of global policy at Circle; Sebastian Bea, president of Coinbase Asset Management; and Zoe Cruz, founder and CEO of Menai Financial Group. Panelists explored crypto’s pivot from hype to infrastructure, with Pham calling for “fit-for-purpose” regulatory frameworks and Lader pointing to the recent growth of Ethereum’s Layer 2 as a key scaling milestone. On institutional adoption, Bea noted that “institutions are here not for hype, but for infrastructure.” The conversation stressed the need to separate fraud narratives from innovation potential and highlighted increasing demand for tokenized real-world assets and global demand for USD-denominated stablecoins.
Comment Letter on Digital Asset Market Structure
This May, the FinTech program submitted a comment letter in response to the 2025 Digital Asset Market Structure Discussion Draft, building on our 2023 comment letter addressing an earlier version of the bill. The latest draft, released jointly by the House Financial Services and Agriculture Committees, seeks to establish a comprehensive regulatory framework for the digital asset ecosystem.
The letter builds on the program’s longstanding position that financial innovation must be accompanied by transparency, trust, and inclusive access. It welcomes the bill’s direction and offers five key recommendations to strengthen its innovation orientation and implementation feasibility. These include clarifying the process for blockchain maturity certification, improving domestic and global regulatory harmonization, refining definitions and expectations around decentralized finance, coordinating innovation offices across agencies, and prioritizing financial literacy and economic mobility in market development.
US Payments Modernization
The past year has marked a decisive acceleration in US payments modernization efforts, driven by policy shifts, infrastructure upgrades, and rising pressure from global benchmarks.
The most high-profile federal development came in March with President Trump’s Executive Order on Modernizing Payments To and From America’s Bank Account, which mandates the phasing out of paper checks for all federal disbursements and receipts by September 30, 2025. Positioned as a cost-saving and anti-fraud measure, the directive mandates a full transition to digital payments, including direct deposit, prepaid cards, and real-time payment systems such as FedNow. The Treasury Department estimates the move could save over $650 million annually, while improving fraud prevention and payment reliability.
FedNow, launched in mid-2023, has become a cornerstone of real-time payments infrastructure, with over 1,300 financial institutions now onboard, according to research by Softjourn. New pricing incentives introduced for 2025, including fee waivers and discounts for smaller banks, aim to increase adoption further. However, integration remains uneven, with many of the largest institutions yet to join.
The US is looking to gain ground in an increasingly competitive global payments innovation landscape. Speaking at the Milken Institute Global Conference, during the session “Next Tech Frontier: How Latin America Does It Best,” former Central Bank of Brazil Governor Roberto Campos Neto emphasized the transformative power of public sector-led digital infrastructure, noting that Brazil’s PIX system now processes nearly twice the per capita transaction volume of India’s Unified Payments Interface. He described the four foundational pillars of Brazil’s approach—engagement, connectivity, open data, and programmability—and highlighted how these efforts spurred financial inclusion, reduced market concentration, and laid the groundwork for tokenized finance.
From a policy perspective, the US FinTech sector remains focused on two key issues: direct participation in FedNow and the resolution of interoperability standards for real-time payment rails. Federal Reserve Governor Michael Barr has also emphasized the role of bank–FinTech collaboration in accelerating payments innovation. In recent remarks, he called for responsible GenAI deployment in the financial system, urging regulators to adapt standards while enabling tech-forward innovation at scale.
Daniel Gorfine, CEO of Gattaca Horizons, and former CFTC Chairman Chris Giancarlo explore these issues further in their recent Milken Institute Review article, “The Case for Payments Modernization.” They argue that payments modernization is foundational to both economic competitiveness and financial inclusion. Their piece examines why legacy systems persist and how public-private alignment will be key to building a more accessible and efficient US payments system.