The Through Line: Banking, AI Guardrails, and the Re-Plumbing of Payments

About this episode

Today I've got three things: FIS earnings, Anthropic (of course) and the Pentagon, and why stablecoins are a B2B story. I also teased out my prediction for who will become the "SBF of AI" at then end .Tomorrow I will dig into Stripe at $160B potentially acquiring PayPal. Happy Tuesday.

FIS Q4 Earnings (0:00–5:00)

Theme: AI as Banking Infrastructure

* FIS reported $2.7B in Q4 2025 revenue

* 78% recurring revenue, serves 14 of top 25 US banks

* Predicting 4X AI spend in 2026, targeting 8X industry AI adoption vs. 2023

* New AI transaction platform launched

* Stock flat — which for a legacy company in this market is actually fine

* Bridge to payments: Stripe letter (and so did Checkout.com) dropped today — $160B valuation (up from $92B). Stripe potentially acquiring PayPal will be talked about tomorrow. PayPal down 37% in past year, with a new CEO starting March 1.

“If you’re a public company, it just behooves you to speak about AI in some capacity. But it’s very interesting for these companies where they tend to adopt new technology slower.”

AI Guardrails & National Security (5:00–12:00)

Theme: Who Sets the Rules When AI Is Strategic Infrastructure?

* Dario Amodei (Anthropic CEO) in active conversations with Pentagon about model access

* This mirrors what’s happening at consumer level — many sites blocking Claude/MCP agents for various reasons. But in this case Anthropic is setting boundaries on where it will go with and the Pentagon is pushing back on the AI guardrails.

* The repeating question: who governs when AI becomes strategic infrastructure?

* My IRS parallel: government services + AI = massive policy questions

* People using Claude/GPT for taxes with minimal regulation

* Anthropic’s political positioning vs. current administration creating friction

* Supply chain risk in AI becoming a policy issue

* Anthropic + IBM / COBOL teaser — we will do a deeper dive on this likely on the ModernTax channel

“It’s not a surprise that Anthropic is going through this and not OpenAI because Anthropic has been outspoken against the current administration.”

Stablecoins as B2B Payment Infrastructure (12:00–18:00)

Theme: Stablecoins Aren’t a Crypto Story — They’re a Payments Infrastructure Story

* Continuing from yesterday’s Citrini report breakdown

* Your personal experience: paying 2.5% on payment processing fees, looking for alternatives

* The real opportunity is B2B, not consumer: settlements, marketplaces, creator payouts, remittances, cross-border

* Hour-long conversation with risk manager at major payment processor — cross-border payments, programmable payouts, platform distribution

* $1.75 trillion in annual payroll taxes — what happens when AI reshapes where that revenue comes from?

“Every time you process a payment and you’re paying 2.5%, if you’re a business owner, it has to hurt your soul.”

The Through Line & Predictions (18:00–20:00)

Theme: Connecting the Dots

* The through line: banking margins are being compressed from every direction — AI agents, stablecoins, new entrants

* Enterprise agents are coming, but adoption outside Silicon Valley is much slower

* Compliance perimeter expands as infrastructure moves off traditional rails

* “Who’s going to be the SBF of AI?” — legal repercussions are coming

* Mentor quote: “Every day I’m trying to make investments I won’t be embarrassed of in a year”

* Teaser: Founders who get product into enterprise hands before vendor procurement catches up are winning right now

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📚 Resources & Links

* ModernTax

* Clearfirm

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