Banking Meets Payments: Capital, AI Reality Checks, and the Tokenized-Deposit Shakeup

Hosted by Leo Arzumanyan and Jeremy Stock. Special guest: Adam T. Hark, Managing Member, Wellesley Hills Financial (https://www.wellesleyhillsfinancial.com/).

Payments isn’t just rails and rates anymore; it’s capital, contracts, and data that decide who scales and who stalls. In this candid, operator-level conversation, Adam Hark maps the real terrain for ISOs, PayFacs, acquirers, and ISVs: how residual streams get valued, why lenders still struggle to underwrite payments businesses, where AI helps (and where it absolutely doesn’t), and why tokenized deposits from major banks could upend stablecoin economics and B2B money movement.

What we dig into

From portfolio trades to full-stack banking: How residual purchases, portability, and ISO/agent structures shaped a niche investment-banking playbook for payments—and what buyers actually pay for when they value a book.

Capital that understands payments: Why traditional lenders misread variable merchant cash flows, the collateral that really counts, and the deal structures that align risk with revenue.

AI without the fairy dust: The practical use case is heavy-lift data processing (merchant-level files that set portfolio value), not judgment or strategy. Generative tools draft; experts decide. Hallucinations are a legal and financial risk without human oversight.

Operating in the tokenized era: How bank-issued tokenized deposits (with yield) could challenge private stablecoins, change treasury workflows, and accelerate corporate adoption of blockchain rails—while cores, processors, and gateways scramble to keep up.

Founder focus: Don’t bolt AI or crypto onto the roadmap just to keep up with the buzz. Start from the problem: auth rates, cost to collect, dispute cycle time, portfolio attrition. Solve that, then layer tech.

Field notes for teams

Valuation is in the data exhaust: Clean merchant-level reporting and cohort analysis beat pitch decks. If you want a premium, instrument your book.

Contracts drive financeability: Data portability, token migration, termination assistance, and audit rights are the difference between “bankable” and “hard pass.”

AI guardrails: Use models to wrangle processor files and KPIs; never ship output without expert review. Treat models as interns—fast, not authoritative.

Tokenized deposits over press releases: Expect treasury to demand speed and yield. If you touch payouts or cross-border, start planning wallet addresses, policy, and controls now.

Talent and trust: Niche expertise compounds. Clients will pay for people who actually understand payments math, not just “fintech.”

Why this episode matters

If you raise capital, buy portfolios, or operate on the sharp end of merchant acquiring, this is your playbook for 2025: get your data house in order, negotiate bankable contracts, deploy AI where it’s measurable, and prepare for tokenized deposits to change how funds move and settle.

**Matters discussed are all opinions and do not constitute legal advice. All events or likeness to real people and events is a coincidence.**

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A payments podcast of Global Legal Law Firm