Remy Blaire: Well, breaking today at Money20/20, Mastercard has officially unveiled Stablecoin Security, a brand-new risk intelligence solution designed to catch fraud, scams, and sanctions risks before digital asset funds ever move on-chain. And as stablecoins and AI agents reshape global commerce, financial institutions face a massive test: how to embrace high-speed, automated value transfer without sacrificing consumer safety or compliance.
Well, joining us to break down the announcement is Ann Johnson, executive VP of security solutions at Mastercard. Ann, good morning, and welcome to the show. Thank you so much for joining us.
Ann Johnson: Thank you for having me. Good morning.
Remy Blaire: Well, on the heels of this news, I do want to ask you, what is it going to take to bring stablecoins into the mainstream and also create trust?
Ann Johnson: I think it is about trust, right? There’s a lot of innovation. We’re talking about it across the industry. I’ve heard “stablecoin” about 25 times already this morning, and I think it is about trust. For us, it’s about taking those decades we have of intelligence across identity, fraud, cybersecurity, marrying that with the intelligence we get on the blockchain, and putting together a risk score for financial institutions, so they can feel confident that when they’re moving that money in just seconds, they know that it’s safe and secure to move that money.
Remy Blaire: And of course, because the news just broke here as day two of Money20/20 gets underway, give us your take on this and what it means for our viewers out there.
Ann Johnson: I think for our viewers out there, cross-border is really where we think stablecoin is going to have a big impact. Think about it. Let’s say you’re a coffee shop in Boston, right? And you’re buying beans from somebody in Latin America. And you want to very quickly do a transaction, but you don’t want to have to think about FX rates. You don’t want to have to think about how the money is moving. You can actually use stablecoins. So stablecoin is a digitization of the fiat, right? And you can use stablecoin to move that money very quickly, to process your transaction quickly, and to pay your supplier very quickly. So you know your beans are going to arrive in time, so that you and I can have our morning coffee.
Remy Blaire: Yeah. And I think that is so important, because we all know that coffee is key. And as you mentioned, we don’t want to worry about all these things, including FX rates, when we’re on the go. So now that we’ve established that, I do want to get your perspective on artificial intelligence. I’m sure this morning you’ve heard the term AI, in particular agentic AI, so many times since Money20/20 has commenced. But tell us about agentic AI and what’s happening at Mastercard.
Ann Johnson: Yeah, it’s the same principle, right? We believe that, again, there’s a lot of innovation, but trust is going to allow that innovation to scale. So about three weeks ago, we introduced our agent trust and intelligence solutions. Same principle, right? We have decades of data. We’re taking that intelligence. We’re matching it with what we get from the agent workflow.
What we’re seeing now is a lot of people browsing on AI. They’re not quite transacting on AI. We don’t think that people are going to be really comfortable to transact yet unless they have confidence that that agent is verified. It’s doing what we want it to do. It’s interacting with the right merchant. It’s spending on the right card, whatever we’re asking it to do. And that verifiable intent, we talk about that a lot, married with all the intelligence we get, will give you, as a consumer, that “okay, we’re now ready.” It’s not just about shopping for the shoes. We’re going to transact for the shoes.
Remy Blaire: Yeah. And speaking of which, in addition to trust, there are concerns about fraud and cyber risk as we start embracing artificial intelligence, in particular agentic AI. So what is your take on the post-human checkout?
Ann Johnson: That’s such a great question, because of cybersecurity. So when you think about agentic AI, you have the cyber defenders who can use AI, but you also have the bad guys, right? The threat actors, as we call them, who can use AI. And then when you think about having agentic AI actually access your financial information to make a post-human checkout experience, you actually have to have confidence.
The only way you’re going to have confidence is if you have trust in the institution, if you have trust that you’re getting the right intelligence signal to tell whether it’s going to be a fraudulent merchant, whether it’s going to be a transaction that you didn’t authorize. So we’re trying to give all that intelligence around the actual transactions and the post-human checkout, so the humans, but also the merchants and the banks, can feel comfortable in that transaction.
Remy Blaire: And I do want to expand on this. So as we see some of these rapid infrastructure shifts, what do you think is important as we head into the future?
Ann Johnson: I think that we’re going to continue to see people transacting in many different ways, right? People are still going to use cards, but they’re also going to want to use things that are in their digital wallet. They’re going to want to use stablecoins. They’re going to want to use agentic. They’re going to want to use crypto. Our job at Mastercard is to make sure that our fraud and our identity and our cybersecurity solutions, and all the intelligence we have, are giving consumers that confidence. So no matter where in the world they want to transact, or how they want to transact, they have the same level of comfort they would have as if they used a traditional credit card transaction.
Remy Blaire: And finally, before I let you go, Mastercard is a household name. Everybody recognizes the name as well as the brand and the logos. So as we head into 2027 and beyond, what would you like users out there to know about the organization?
Ann Johnson: We are committed to the future of global payments. We are committed to the future of having a payment infrastructure with all of the confidence you’ve always had for 60 years. By the way, it’s amazing to me, for 60 years, with your card transactions. We want to give you that same level of confidence as a consumer, that no matter how you want to transact or where you want to transact, we’re going to stand behind you, and we’re going to give you the intelligence to make the right decision.
Remy Blaire: Well, Ann, appreciate your time this morning. Thank you so much for joining us as Money20/20 gets underway here in Vegas. Appreciate your time as well as all of your insights.
Ann Johnson: Thank you.
