For many Louisiana families, the holidays are not just a season of celebrations, they are a season of spending. Christmas dinner costs more than it used to. Parents stretch their budgets to make Christmas morning special for kids who don’t yet understand inflation, and with the new year comes new costs.
While the pressure is felt across the country, it’s especially sharp for Louisiana families. The U.S. Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Survey found that 43.1% of adults in Louisiana reported at least some difficulty paying their usual household expenses in a given week, while the national share was lower at 37%. A recent retail survey found shoppers planning to spend less than the year before, expecting higher prices, and cutting back on extras while searching harder for deals.
Louisiana families have enough difficulty rebuilding savings after the holidays, but many of our current financial products make it harder than it should be. When was the last time your savings account felt like it rewarded you for saving at the end of the month?
That is why financial innovation matters directly for families’ pocketbooks.
Many of the payment apps we use to do our holiday shopping with, like PayPal and Cash App, are rewarding us for saving with higher interest payments. The new technology that allows these apps to put more money in our pockets are known as stablecoins. While technically a kind of cryptocurrency, they don’t fluctuate in price like cryptocurrency such as Bitcoin because they are backed 1:1 by dollars or short-term government bonds.
In mid-2025, Congress passed legislation known as the GENIUS Act, a powerful step toward offering regulatory clarity for stablecoins, which are digital dollars that move at the speed on the internet. The GENIUS Act signaled progress toward embracing financial innovation, but work remains to be done in all areas of the financial industry to avoid onerous regulations and provide a competitive, free market.
Payment companies like PayPal and Cashapp are rapidly adopting stablecoin technology because it makes payments faster and cheaper while providing incentives for consumers to use their product in the form of payment rewards for saving money on their apps. This means that Louisianans can often earn nearly 4% while saving but also have funds available for unexpected expenses.
This is a classic story of innovation. Businesses create new products and consumers are the ones who stand to benefit.
But that progress is now under threat.
As we’ve seen before, the story of innovation is often met with established businesses who want to prevent competition, in this case, large banks. Many banks’ checking and saving accounts pay less than 1 percent for borrowing your money, while they keep the lion’s share of profits for themselves.
So at precisely the time families need to replenish their savings, Congress is considering making it illegal for consumers to select a more budget-friendly option and be paid for holding stablecoins across a wide variety of platforms and applications.
If banks believe the best way to help families save is through traditional accounts, they are free to compete by offering better rates, lowering fees, and improving the customer experience. They can even offer stablecoins and many banks across the country have announced plans to do so. Innovation, not government protectionism, is the way to improve the lives of Louisiana families.
Congress should embrace regulatory clarity and allow Louisianans to have competition for their savings. Because when consumers win, Louisiana wins.
