Why consultants and core providers don’t want community banks reading this
Control & Money
- Their entire revenue model depends on community banks staying scared, stuck, and dependent — not on community banks asking sharp questions about vendor liability or turning off integrated features.
- Stablecoin rails are the next product they’re selling back to you — the CEA report softens the ground for that sale. A community bank that reads the fine print is a community bank that negotiates harder or walks.
- “Deposit flight” framing keeps you lobbying, not auditing — every hour spent fighting the ICBA fight is an hour not spent auditing the vendor contract that already put crypto on your roadmap.
- The three-to-one math is fatal to the sales pitch — if community banks understand that even the “win” hands three dollars to the megabanks, the whole trade association lobbying apparatus looks like a wheel spinning in place.
- They profit either way — CLARITY passes with yield: they sell you yield-bearing stablecoin rails. CLARITY fails: they sell you non-yielding GENIUS Act rails. The only losing scenario for them is the one where you read the contract.
- Questions #1, #2, and #5 on the board list are the existential ones — “which vendors already integrated features we didn’t approve,” “where does liability sit,” and “what’s our kill switch.” Those three questions end consulting engagements.
The money, 2024–2025 (FEC / OpenSecrets / ICBA.org)
Community bank side — what you paid
- ABA BankPAC raised: $3.75M (2023–2024 cycle)
- ABA federal lobbying, 2024: $7.39M
- ABA total org contributions, 2024 cycle: $3.95M
- ICBA PAC raised: ~$1.85M per cycle, from 3,000+ community bankers
- ICBA PAC disbursed: $760K to 320+ federal candidates in 2024
- Commercial Banks PAC total (all commercial bank PACs combined): $11.63M to federal candidates, 2023–2024 cycle
Core provider side — what the vendors spent
- Fiserv: $1.21M in contributions + $810K in lobbying = $2.02M (2024 cycle)
- FIS / Jack Henry: smaller footprints but lobbying spend flows through ABA and the Bank Policy Institute
Crypto side — the competition that wrote the report’s premise
- Fairshake Super PAC: $260M raised in 2024 cycle (OpenSecrets)
- Coinbase alone: $75M+ into Fairshake + affiliates in 2024
- Ripple: $45–50M
- Crypto-sector total, 2024 cycle: $119M minimum (Public Citizen) / $245M+ (CNBC)
- Coinbase already committed: $25M more for the 2026 midterms
Go back and read how to enforce your rights in renegotiating your contracts. This is exactly what they do not want you to do. The math is above showing why.
Download and share the full article here
This is about re-negotiating your existing and upcoming contracts with your vendors. You have the ability to do this:
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