INSIGHTS

On September 21, 2026

AAM Viewpoints — Looking to the Horizon

As you may know, AAM's CEO and CIO, Cliff Corso, has been discussing the investment world’s move toward outcomes and thematic-based investing for some time. In this Viewpoints article, I am going to explore the latter, shedding some light on a theme I have been monitoring for over 10 years that is starting to take hold: financial services are changing as blockchain-based payment and settlement networks, tokenized assets, and advanced analytics are moving from experimentation toward commercial adoption. We are moving from owning digital assets to determining how to use them throughout financial services.

What is the Opportunity?

The most durable opportunities are likely to emerge where digital money and data-driven decision systems can improve existing financial workflows. For example, stablecoins and tokenized deposits, like the many tokenized money market funds now offered, can support real-time movement of money. Advanced analytics can improve comparability, underwriting, compliance, pricing, and customer service. Below are a few projections for how large this space could reach by the end of the decade:

• McKinsey estimates that global fintech revenue could increase from approximately $650 billion in 2025 to $2 trillion by 2030.
• Citi projects stablecoin issuance of $1.9 trillion in its 2030 base case and $4.0 trillion in its bull case, compared with approximately $280 billion in 2025.
• Boston Consulting Group and Ripple project tokenized real-world assets could expand from approximately $0.6 trillion in 2025 to $9.4 trillion by 2030.

Why Now?

Three forces are converging. Technology is maturing and is being increasingly integrated into institutional workflows, particularly in cross-border payments, treasury management, and tokenized cash and securities. More importantly, regulation is beginning to legitimize digital assets. The GENIUS Act, signed into U.S. law on July 18, 2025, established a federal framework for payment stablecoins. It provided rules for stablecoins such as 1:1 backing by stable and safe assets like cash and short-term Treasuries. This means a much lower volatility digital asset (stablecoin) can be used for financial services processes and work streams, since crypto assets were much too volatile to be used.

Where has it Started?

Digital money and tokenized infrastructure are already being applied to cross-border payments, treasury management, and settlement. It has the potential to provide lower friction with fewer stops (and fees) along the way, near-continuous availability, faster settlement, fewer intermediaries (and fees), and potentially lower operating costs. Think about cross-border transactions going from 5-10% in fees and settling in days, to a fraction of the cost and settling in minutes. Treasury settlement where companies likely do not need to hold pools of assets all over the world, wiring them back and forth, to digital assets that flow to where they are needed immediately and settled immediately.

Potential applications include earning interest on your collateral, real-time movement of funds, streamlined mortgage processing, lower-cost cards, remittance transactions, and 24/7 trading with atomic settlement. Advanced analytics can reinforce this infrastructure by potentially improving credit and insurance underwriting, optimizing returns on idle cash (think of the trillions of dollars in no or low interest rate accounts), and making complex financial products easier to compare like life insurance.

Investment Implications

Adoption may be uneven and innovation could occur on many fronts, but this theme appears to support a durable, multi-year investment horizon. As with any thematic investment, I believe being disciplined with diversified positions across the many facets of the theme makes sense. The strongest opportunities may emerge among companies that provide regulated digital-asset infrastructure, custody, compliance, data, payments, and/or tokenization capabilities rather than from any single digital asset. I would pay particular attention to the financial companies (incumbents and new entrants) that are creating consortiums and partnerships aiming to take advantage of this changing landscape.

CRN: 2026-0910-13786 R