“Poker chips are stable coins,” Jay Rogers, CEO of infineo, drops this comment mid-conversation, and it lands perfectly. No jargon.
At GAC 2026, Rogers sat down with Sarah Snell Cooke of The Credit Union Connection for a conversation that starts with executive benefit plans and somehow ends up at the frontier of how financial assets will be held, traded, and understood over the next decade. If your eyes just glazed over a little, stick with us, because Rogers has a gift for making the complex sound almost obvious.
Rogers has spent over a decade working with credit unions of all sizes, and what he’s built with infineo is genuinely hard to categorize. It sits at the intersection of life insurance, institutional finance, and blockchain technology, three things that probably don’t share a sentence very often in your world. His core argument is straightforward though: life insurance is one of the most reliable assets out there, and yet it’s been sitting on credit union balance sheets like furniture nobody knows what to do with. The Life Notes Trust was his answer to that, and 100-plus credit unions have already bought in.
Then comes the blockchain piece. And yes, we know what you’re thinking. But Rogers is quick to separate what infineo is doing from the crypto rollercoaster most people picture. Think less GameStop, more plumbing upgrade. The Las Vegas analogy he uses to explain stable coins is genuinely one of the clearest explanations we’ve heard, and it comes from a credit union colleague, which makes it even better. Hit play, you’ll see what we mean.
NOTE: If transcription were this AI’s superpower, it would be a very disappointing superhero origin story.
Sarah Cooke
Welcome everyone. We’re here live at the GAC 2026 I am Sarah Snell Cooke your host at The Credit Union Connection. I am joined today by Jay Rogers, welcome.
Jay Rogers
Thank you. Thanks for having me.
Sarah Cooke
Jay is the CEO at a company called infineo. Give yourself a little bit more of an introduction as well as the
Jay Rogers
company, of course, yeah, well, it’s great to be with you. I’m Jay Rogers, the CEO at infineo, and we are tokenizing life insurance. So my background comes from the traditional financial space. I started at New York Life, I eventually moved to mass mutual, and then I worked at Stern’s Financial Group in implementing executive benefit plans focused specifically on collateral assignment split dollar, we were selling large life insurance assets to back these retention vehicles that credit unions were using to retain their key people in about 2020 we started asking the question, how can we get these off the balance sheet faster for credit unions? And we introduced the life notes trust to the credit union landscape. It has really taken off. We have just closed the first $500 million fund, and have launched the second fund, and it’s a trust that is owned by the credit unions. It is a pass through special purpose vehicle, and all of the investors in the trust are credit unions at this point. And the goal there was to be able to really through pooling to be able to pass any added value back through to the credit unions and the executives involved in these plans. Right in 2024 we knew that the next phase of this process was going to be moving these assets, this real world asset of life insurance on chain, and tokenizing life insurance. And in the process of building out the team to go and do this, we realized there was a firm who had just done this and was looking to then go out and build the traditional financial asset pool. So after meeting, we determined that that merging with this firm, infineo and capaxa, our firm and Stern’s Financial Group, merging together, that we would be able to kind of fast forward all of our roadmaps and business models three years, and now we’re one year into that, and it’s been a really, really eventful one year for us.
Sarah Cooke
What type of credit union does this work best for?
Jay Rogers
Yeah, so honestly, it works. There’s different value propositions for all credit unions. When you say, what type of credit union does this work best for? Do you mean the life notes trust, or do you mean the just traditional split dollar structure of insurance?
Sarah Cooke
The life notes, trust, yeah.
Jay Rogers
So I would say there’s different values for each but it works for any credit union that has either already implemented a split dollar plan or has aspirations to retain their key people through some of these mechanisms. The best way to think about it is split dollar was a really attractive tool when interest rates were low, because it allowed credit unions to use opportunity cost instead of accounting costs to retain their key people. But now that interest rates have spiked, that opportunity cost is less palatable, right? There’s, you know, there’s other things they can do with that capital, as opposed to locking it up for 30, 40, or even 50 years, right? There’s other things they’d rather do with it. So the life notes trust, it enables them to really marry the best features of 450, 7f and the best features of collateral, assignment, split dollar in leveraging opportunity cost, but having a fixed time horizon, fixed maturity on that loan, right? So that’s, that’s what the credit unions I mean all the way. Our smallest client is 19 million in asset size. Our largest client is over 10 billion in asset size.
Sarah Cooke
Yes. So when you go to a board and say, All this, how does that go over? How do you explain it?
Jay Rogers
It varies, but it’s really, it’s taking a really complex topic already in traditional collateral assignment split dollar, and it’s introducing a new element. So very often, you know, we’re going into a board to acquire an existing portfolio of these assets, and they’re thinking to themselves, dang it, I just had to learn this thing. And now you’re telling me there’s something new. Luckily, what we’re really doing is we’re taking a tried and true process of pooling right, which they’re used to right, they’re there, they very often have originated mortgages, and sell them off to another entity that’s pooling those assets. This is just taking an asset that, frankly, is more reliable in what it’s going to do, and pooling them. That’s why this has been so successful, is because I know that these life insurance assets are going to go up in value every year. I may not know by how much right every year they declare a different dividend, and that kind of changes the structure of the growth, but I know that something’s not going to happen in the market that causes the entire life insurance portfolio to go down by. 15% like you can see with a mortgage reduction, right? So it’s really about educating them around how this works. There was a really great article written on the life notes trust called the securitization frontier, by Bobby Samuelson, and it really helped explain how this is something that’s happened across asset classes, and it’s just now being done with life insurance. And, you know, to our credit, we were able to figure out that this was a great pool of resources that enabled something that had not been done with life insurance before to be done.
Sarah Cooke
What is the benefit of having the block on the chain, having it on chain?
Jay Rogers
Yeah, that’s it. That’s a different, different discussion. But what we’ve done, a great example of this is figure. Figure.com founded by Mike Cagney, who’s also the founder of Sofi, he started a company that was originating HELOCs. There’s actually a number of credit unions here that work with figure to sell HELOCs to their members. And all of those met all of those members and clients of figure, they don’t even know that their HELOCs are on chain. So blockchain, I think it’s, it’s a misconception. People think blockchain, they think crypto. They think risk, right? Blockchain is just technology, right? And this is a technology that is, is coming. It’s not a question of if, or even really when, it’s here for a lot of these right? We, I met this morning with St Cloud Credit Union. I don’t know if you’ve spoken with them. I have, yeah, but I mean, my goodness, Jed and chase and that team, what they’ve done with building out their own custody, built into their core, is fantastic. We’re having conversations with them around, what can we do collaboratively around our stable coin, backed by life insurance right, and their custody. I mean, I’m envisioning a world where credit unions are able to take this $9 billion pocket of assets, which are all locked up in collateral assignment, split dollar loans to executives, and through adding these onto the chain, and through this new technology, unlocking additional value to their membership. And so we’ve not necessarily finished the process of tokenizing life insurance. What we’re doing is we’re focusing on the institutional side, right? And we’ve proven this in the analog, right? We’ve proven that life insurance truly is the purest form of blue chip collateral out there, right? We’ve worked with banks on the life notes trust as a portfolio of assets, and this is something that is ripe to be pledged and provided a line of credit on and to be able to drive additional yield through. And so that’s what we’re seeing when you, when you move these assets on chain, and they’re now represented in a stable coin, it just creates a more seamless process. It’s more transparent, it’s more efficient, and as figure found that added efficiency resulted in lower cost and higher yields that were passed through to their users. And in this instance, my hope is that this added efficiency can drive additional yield that the credit unions can pass through in some way to their members. And I think that’s really powerful.
Sarah Cooke
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Get more loans out the door, get capital into the community, as well as earning more on assets that aren’t just sitting there exactly.
Jay Rogers
I think, I think you know why? Why do credit unions do this? And then why are credit unions concerned about doing SERPs and split dollar plans. It’s, you know, this is trying to answer that question. They may be concerned about it, because, yes, I want to retain my key people. I’d love for all of my executives and all of my key people to have an executive benefit or a SERP right, to retain them and keep them there, that continuity is so important, but not if it’s going to come at the cost of the membership and doing right by the membership, right? There’s a cost that is will credit unions are willing to pay for that continuity, but my goal is to lower that burden, to lower that cost right, so that they can get more dollars out the door to the membership.
Sarah Cooke
And so what about security? I’m sure that’s one of the questions you get. I How do you assure boards executives about the security?
Jay Rogers
So I think that that is one of our greatest strengths, right? We’re not dealing with fake money or, you know, alt coins that are in the ether, right? These are, these are taking real world assets that are, that are backed stable coins backed by real world assets that are it’s really just providing transparency into those real world assets. Somebody used a great example is actually Chase from St Cloud, and he said he was in a conference, and somebody was trying to explain stable coins to the crowd, and they were struggling. And somebody came up and said the best example of stable coins was created about 80 years ago, and it’s a city that’s built on stable coins, and that city is Las Vegas. Poker chips are stable coins like they’re not money, but everybody knows that that’s backed by money, and that when they go in, they’ll get money for it. That’s what real world assets, moving on chain, represent, right? The state. Coin, life coin, which is our stable coin, is backed by $1 of a life coin. Dollar is a $1 of cash value in a life insurance asset, right? And so that’s that is how you know the transparency of those assets being on chain is what’s able to provide that reliability to the end user, right? And so other questions that are really important are, where is it custodied? Right? That’s why I’m so grateful we’ve got groups like St Cloud and DeLand that are building out these really secure systems so that credit union members can know. Because the end goal here is not executive benefits at credit unions. The end goal is the individual who’s buying life insurance, right? And maybe it’s a member at a credit union. Maybe it’s not. It’s anybody. I mean, there’s, it’s a $3 trillion global market, right, life insurance. And so to be able to help people interact with life insurance in a more educated manner and a more transparent way, people don’t know how much money is in their life insurance policy. I don’t know how familiar you are Sarah with Blockchain, but you know somebody’s cold wallet, or Solana wallet or Coinbase wallet, right, that they can see every day the value of their assets, and so imagine seeing your life insurance represented in your blockchain wallet. That’s where this is going, right? That’s where all of these carriers will move eventually.
Sarah Cooke
And it’s also immutable, right, too, so nobody can change it without look at me using fancy words.
Jay Rogers
No, yeah, it’s not like it. You can just go in and be changed. That’s what I meant when I say transparent. Transparency. That’s what blockchain this technology is adding, that’s why we use it, right? Because how do I know what’s there is actually there, right? And that’s, that’s why we’re not looking to go around these carriers like the life insurance industry is built on the backs of giants in this space that have been operating with the most conservative approach to financial you know, across industries. I mean, they do not take massive risks, right? They’re not interested in in home run hits. They’re interested in consistent singles and doubles. That’s it. And that’s what these companies do, the mutual companies in the industry. I mean, like I said, I started my career at New York Life and mass mutual. Those are two of the best there is, yeah. And so what we’re interested in is working with them to show that transparency through to the retail user. And I do think where is this going? The introduction of blockchain and AI to these industries is going to result in such a better interface for the clients, but more importantly, a much more seamless process for acquiring these products, right? And I say this in that, you know, I don’t know if you’ve ever gotten life insurance. I know a lot of our clients, obviously have a lot of people here. Have most people have life insurance in some aspect in their life. The process for getting it is cumbersome, right? I’ve got to fill out forms, answer questions, have a nurse come to my house, take blood, urine. I’ve got to answer the same questions again. They got to get in touch with my doctor and get my records. And that takes a while. Sometimes they literally are faxing these things right? Envision, I envision a world where they’re underwriting completely differently. They’re using AI. I envision a world where medical records departments are moving their at their records on chain. I mean, you’re perfect attending physician statement should be an NFT. It really should something that you is non fungible, that you control, that you can give access to whom you’d like to give access to, right? And I see that world lowering the cost of acquisition for these products, not just to credit union members or executives, but to any retail user.
Sarah Cooke
And so why are we starting with the credit union executive cert benefits?
Jay Rogers
Yeah, I think it’s just the perfect place to start. It is, by chance where we were right. I spent a decade. This is my 11th GAC. I spent a decade here working with credit unions on implementing collateral assignment split dollar plans. And so, you know, when we, when we introduced the life notes trust, it was, it was novel, and it was certainly something that really helped credit unions pivot the tail of these assets to be a more, you know, short duration, but credit unions were just the perfect institutional space, because that was something we needed to start with. We didn’t want to go out and start trying to go door to door with this. We wanted to go institution to institution, and that enabled us to scale. That’s why infineo was interested in partnering with us. By the time we were with them, we had almost $500 million in assets inside the trust already, right? And they were the perfect partner for us.
Sarah Cooke
And how many credit unions are involved right now?
Speaker 2
So we have over 100 credit unions. Life notes, trust,
Sarah Cooke
Very cool. And I always love, I guess. Final thoughts, what would you like leave our credit union audience with today?
Jay Rogers
Yeah. I. I’m excited. I want to leave them with excitement, right? I want to leave them with excitement on where this is going, right? We’re not, we’re not pushing a financial product. We’re pushing technological adoption, right? And it’s, it’s great, because we’re no longer in a phase where this is a technology that is being questioned whether it’s going to be adopted. And you’ve got these, you know, risk takers who are trying to push it forward. You’ve got the heads of all of the traditional financial global institutions saying all real world assets will be on chain within the next decade, right? And we just happen to be the leaders in bringing life insurance on chain, right? And so I’m excited for your credit union listeners and members and credit unions to see that they have an asset that can have added efficiency and added value by taking advantage of this technology now, and some of their credit union colleagues and other credit unions peers, right, are already doing so.
Sarah Cooke
Yeah, awesome. Well, thank you so much, Jay. Appreciate the insights. A lot of great information.
Jay Rogers
Awesome. It’s great to be with you. Thank you seeing.