Year one on the floor at Jack Henry Connect 2026

From October 19–21, I attended Jack Henry Connect 2026 in Kansas City alongside my colleagues Kevin Chen, Head of Engineering at Cosmos, and Vlad Jidkov, Senior Software Engineer at Cosmos. It was Jack Henry's 50th anniversary, and the floor was full of community bankers and credit union leaders who have spent decades earning trust one account at a time.

At booth 1508, we discussed how tokenized deposits can enable 24/7 cross-border settlement in under three seconds, and how the Cosmos Tokenization Suite helps banks:

• Move money more efficiently
• Enable conditional payments, including escrows and real-time sweeps
• Move funds instantly between deposits and other assets

We expected to spend much of the event introducing banks to digital ledger technology and its applications. Instead, we filled our notes with sharper questions than we hear at most crypto conferences. We met teams from more than 50 banks, credit unions, and partners.

• Community and regional banks, from under $1 billion to over $10 billion in assets
• Credit unions, including several over $1 billion in assets
• A corporate credit union and a CUSO that each serve dozens to hundreds of credit unions
• Core and digital banking teams, including developer relations and digital assets leads
• Cloud and big tech financial services teams
• Cross-border payments and open banking data providers
• Advisors, consultants and trade media who help institutions make sense of all this

We returned from Kansas City with several valuable insights into how banks are approaching tokenized deposits and the opportunities and challenges they see in adopting this technology.

The next question is interoperability

Three days before Connect, Jack Henry expanded its collaboration with Google Cloud so banks and credit unions can offer tokenized deposits on Google Cloud Universal Ledger. That came after Stablecore joined Jack Henry's Fintech Integration Network earlier this year. Together, these developments show how tokenized deposit solutions are becoming accessible to community banks.

That raises what we expect to be one of the central questions for 2027. Once institutions can tokenize deposits, how will those tokens move between them? Jack Henry's strategy team named cross-border payments as the biggest demand area for stablecoin use cases. These transactions require connectivity between different financial networks.

If each institution tokenizes on its own island, we rebuild the fragmentation that tokenization was meant to fix. As more institutions adopt digital ledger technology, ensuring connectivity between their networks becomes increasingly important. What community banking needs is an open, neutral way to connect them.

"Why would we issue a stablecoin?"

During Jack Henry Connect, one question that came up repeatedly in our conversations with bankers was why their institutions should issue stablecoins when tokenized deposits offer similar capabilities and additional benefits.

Discussions centered on what bankers’ customers and members need. They want what stablecoins promise: dollars that move 24/7, settle in seconds and work across platforms, but when a customer buys a third-party stablecoin, that dollar leaves the institution. It becomes reserve backing for someone else's issuer who earns the yield. For a community bank or credit union, this creates a risk of deposit outflows, even as customers benefit from faster and more flexible payments.

Tokenized deposits offer banks a way to provide these capabilities while retaining customer deposits.. The dollar stays a deposit on the institution's own balance sheet, under the banking law it already operates in. The federal stablecoin framework in the GENIUS Act explicitly does not apply to tokenized deposits. The institution keeps the funding, the relationship and the compliance perimeter, and the money gains programmability and always-on settlement.

This distinction is particularly relevant given the ongoing regulatory uncertainty surrounding stablecoins. During a legal session at JH Connect, speakers noted that broader market-structure legislation is not expected to pass this year. Tokenized deposits avoid much of that uncertainty because they live inside a framework banks already know.

"The top priority for most of these institutions is deposit retention, not crypto. Once you connect tokenized deposits to that, bankers lean in. Our job right now is to be the neutral educator, so when they're ready, they know who to call."

Kevin Chen, Head of Engineering, Cosmos

The conversations also highlighted several practical applications for tokenized deposits, including automated cash sweeps to protect deposits, escrow that releases funds on rules instead of paperwork, and real-time treasury management for business customers.

These applications build on existing banking infrastructure.Sessions at Jack Henry sessions covered ISO 20022 wire flows with sanctions screening, as well as escrow and virtual account products institutions run today. Tokenized deposits do not replace that infrastructure. They introduce programmability and enable 24/7 settlement.

AI and digital assets are one conversation

AI was everywhere at Connect. Jack Henry's leadership highlighted AI product expansion as a top priority, alongside cross-border payments and customer trust. The exhibit floor was full of agentic AI for member service, lending, disputes, fraud and software testing.

We think those two themes are converging. AI agents involved in account management, dispute resolution, or business cash management require access to funds they can transact with. That money must be programmable, settle any hour of the day, and carry rules about who can move it and when.

Tokenized deposits are permissioned, rule-bound and still on the institution's books. An agent can trigger a sweep or release an escrow without the dollars ever leaving the bank. The institutions that pair their AI roadmap with a digital asset roadmap will be the ones ready for automated finance.

Institutions are learning now to deploy in 2027

Most institutions we spoke with are still in the early stages of evaluating digital asset technology. Their top priorities this year are AI, fraud reduction and compliance. Many move on new technology only when regulators or customers push them, and some are exploring digital assets because their board is asking.

Kevin led a session in Connect's open-space track called "Digital Assets: How to Prevent Your Deposits from Leaving for Crypto." Of the 33 people in the room, about 26 said they are actively working on a digital asset strategy. Only one institution was nearing the launch of a digital asset product focused on stablecoin custody for cross-border payments.

Key takeaways from our conversations and presentations at Connect:

• Kevin framed the session around four stages of an institution's digital asset journey. The room was visibly relieved to hear that stage one is a fine place to be right now. His explanations generated considerable interest and engagement from attendees.
• Most newcomers start with "crypto" and stablecoins. The benefits of tokenized deposits become clearer when the discussion shifts to deposit retention.
• CFOs, CIOs, COOs and deposit operations team leads often visited our booth together, reflecting the involvement of multiple departments in evaluating digital asset initiatives.
• The people who would run escrow and sweeps day to day wanted to know how reconciliation, holds and the core would work.
• One institution had paid a vendor to monitor deposits flowing out to crypto, and the vendor never delivered. We are also addressing the need for greater visibility into deposit outflows through deposit-flight analytics in the Cosmos Tokenization Suite.

"Most people who stopped by didn't have a digital assets team. They had one person who wanted to learn enough to push it internally. Everyone wants to learn more, and education is how that person wins the room."

Vlad Jidkov, Senior Software Engineer, Cosmos

The interest in digital assets extended beyond the conversations at our booth and the sessions at Connect. Jack Henry already runs monthly office hours on tokenized money and institutions we spoke with expressed interest in short, public resources they could share with colleagues.

Where the Cosmos Tokenization Suite fits

The Cosmos Tokenization Suite lets a bank or credit union issue tokenized deposits that stay on its own balance sheet, and move them across networks. It has three parts:

• Tokenization Engine. Turns deposits into rule-bound, transferable tokens, so sweeps, escrow and payments run on programmed logic.
• Permissioned Cosmos Ledger. A known-participant environment with fast finality, built for regulated institutions.
• IBC (Inter-Blockchain Communication). The open interoperability standard, which moves value between institutions and ledgers without a custodial middleman.

Through IBC, the Cosmos Tokenization Suite enables connectivity between independent digital ledgers, allowing institutions to transfer tokenized deposits across networks while maintaining flexibility in their choice of infrastructure.

Cosmos Tokenization Suite is now available in the Jack Henry marketplace. Jack Henry institutions can find it there today and start with a pilot that fits their core.

What's next

Our biggest lesson from year one is that community banks and credit unions are asking how to offer digital assets without giving their deposits away.

If your team is building a 2027 plan, we would like to help:

• Book a digital asset education session for your leadership, board or deposit operations team, built on the same four-stage framework we used in Kansas City.
• Follow our public education series on LinkedIn and YouTube, starting with tokenized deposits vs. stablecoins coming soon.
• See a Cosmos Tokenization Suite demo of tokenized cash sweeps and escrow running against a core.
• Find our Suite in the Jack Henry marketplace and talk with us about a 2027 pilot.

Thank you to everyone who joined our working session or stopped by the booth, and to the Jack Henry team for a great 50th. We can’t wait to see you at the next event

Reach out at [email protected] if you’re looking to evaluate tokenization strategies.

About the author

Ian Kane is Head of Partnerships at Cosmos, helping banks and financial institutions navigate the convergence of tokenization, AI, and digital assets. His background spans enterprise partnerships, go-to-market strategy, fundraising, and scaling businesses across fintech and blockchain, with a career focused on translating complex technology into products, partnerships, and revenue at the intersection of emerging technology and regulated industries.