Promoting Innovation in Financial Services

SIFMA’s white paper, “Promoting Innovation in Financial Services,” highlights SIFMA’s recommendations for balancing financial regulation and innovation pursuant to the President’s Core Principles. The report includes nine recommendations including the creation of an FSOC Fintech Subcommittee with specific directives to drive innovation among U.S. financial policymakers. The report also includes specific recommendations for other initiatives which impact our members including data aggregation, definition of “control” under the Bank Holding Act, digital investment advice, marketplace lending, distributed ledger technology, cloud computing, data localization, and artificial intelligence.

See Also:

 

Excerpt

Introduction

The Treasury Secretary’s pending report on innovation and financial technology, or fintech, is an important opportunity to assess the existing financial regulatory and supervisory framework with an eye towards reform that would promote responsible innovation, enhance the delivery of financial products and services to our communities and thus foster economic growth and development.

President Trump’s Core Principles for Regulating the United States Financial System should guide the report. In our view, certain aspects of our current regulatory environment unnecessarily hinder the development and implementation of products and services that could “empower Americans to make independent financial decisions and informed choices in the marketplace, save for retirement, and build individual wealth,” “foster economic growth and vibrant financial markets,” and “enable American companies to be competitive with foreign firms in domestic and foreign markets.” Addressing these regulatory frictions would further the principles to “make regulation efficient, effective, and appropriately tailored,” and “rationalize the Federal financial regulatory framework.”

This White Paper covers general principles and topic areas related to innovation and fintech where the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (“SIFMA”) 1 membership has recommendations that it believes, if adopted, would promote innovation and consumer choice as well as spur job creation and economic growth while protecting both consumers and the integrity of the financial system.