In a video interview recorded at the Portfolio Future of Finance 2026 conference, Randall Baran-Chong, Global Vice President at Mastercard, said that money has become software. He argued that blockchain, smart contracts and stablecoins are raising the speed, transparency and automation of financial transactions, reshaping financial infrastructure.
Milestones in the evolution
Baran-Chong traces the development back to the 2008 Bitcoin white paper, which he described as the creation of "internet money." A few years later, Ethereum added programmability, enabling software logic, automated rules and smart contracts to be attached to digital currencies. From this evolution, stablecoins emerged—tokens backed by fiat or high-quality liquid assets that bring blockchain benefits (speed, lower costs, transparency) into the financial system.
Use cases for stablecoins and tokenisation
According to the Mastercard executive, stablecoins and tokenisation open new opportunities for companies and financial institutions across several areas: B2B transactions, retail remittances, and treasury and liquidity management. The core of the "money as software" concept is that money not only transfers value but becomes programmable: transactions can carry logic, automation and partial autonomy.
Banks’ shifting stance
Baran-Chong noted that traditional financial institutions initially observed blockchain with skepticism but many are now actively building around the technology. He cited BlackRock as a strong supporter of tokenised real-world assets and JP Morgan as an example of a firm that, despite earlier crypto-critical views, is working on tokenised deposit networks and its own blockchain-based technologies. He stressed that incumbents are collaborating and searching for use cases that deliver real efficiency gains.
AI agents: governance and commercial challenges
Another central theme of the interview was the economic role of AI agents. Baran-Chong warned that as autonomous, AI-driven agents enter the economy, ensuring they act in line with their owners’ intentions will be a key issue. This requires governance frameworks that provide transparency, explainability, regulatory compliance and appropriate guardrails.
He highlighted the complementary strengths of blockchain and AI: while large language models and many AI systems operate probabilistically, blockchains provide deterministic mechanisms such as smart contracts. These contracts can help define the conditions under which AI agents may execute transactions or make decisions.
Mastercard’s initiatives
Mastercard is already developing solutions Baran-Chong mentioned by name, such as Agent Pay for Machines and other frameworks supporting so-called agentic commerce. The aim is to enable AI agents and machines to participate in the economy in a secure, controllable and reliable manner.
Conclusion
Baran-Chong’s message is clear: the financial sector has moved beyond mere experimentation with blockchain, tokenisation, stablecoins and AI. Large institutions are actively building the new infrastructure that could make money programmable, automatable and a foundational layer of the digital economy to come.
Related coverage from the conference includes our Future of Finance 2026 report published on 2026-09-23 and the audience-vote results story published on 2026-09-27.
