Idea · carried by 1 source
The Flawed Narrative About US Financial Infrastructure
The popular Silicon Valley narrative that US financial infrastructure is broken and running on COBOL is false. The Federal Reserve's systems are actually excellent — capable of 24/7 instant settlement faster than stablecoins. The real problem is implementation constraints at the edges, not the core infrastructure.
Where it comes from
William Hockey, pushing back against fintech mythology, in highlights/william-hockey-bet-on-yourself (~1:03:26): “There's this narrative like, 'Oh, financial services is fundamentally broken.' Like, our institutions are actually pretty damn good. There's this narrative sometimes people talk about is like, 'Oh, US financial services it's built on COBOL and stuff like this.' It's just not. It's just not true.”
How it works
- The Fed is technically competent: “I'll go on the record talking about this. The Fed has a pretty good tech team. Their systems are actually pretty good.”
- 24/7 settlement exists today: “The US right now through the Fed has a capability to move money and to clear money through all of these institutions 24/7. Faster than stable coins, faster than crypto. Right now, as we speak. We've had that for decades.”
- The real problem is implementation: “The problem isn't in the fundamental infrastructure. It's in our implementation of it.”
- Why can't community banks do 24/7?: “If you can send money out of your community bank 24/7, well, that bank could run on a weekend. I don't know if you guys have ever been to a rural community, the community bank with 50 people. You can't get people to work on the weekends.”
Silicon Valley keeps trying to “fix” the US financial system by rebuilding infrastructure that doesn't need rebuilding. The real opportunity is in the implementation layer — making the existing excellent infrastructure accessible to everyone.