Fintech: Support to experimentation frameworks and regulatory compliance

"Fintech" is at the confluence of various digital technologies, financial areas and the entrepreneurial landscape, with many startups and scaleups proposing disrupting services. The challenge is to increase the role Europe play in Fintech so that EU startups can better scale-up across Europe and at global level. Facilitating the interactions between innovators, supervisors and regulators is particularly relevant in this context.

Scope

• Bring together a group of regulatory or supervisory bodies, and other relevant organisations to investigate new approaches for piloting innovative Fintech solutions, anticipating risks, and facilitating the operations of Fintech firms that want to grow and scale-up across Europe.
• Build capacity and expertise regarding new technologies and models to support early understanding for regulators or supervisors and to offer specific advice to Fintech firms that want to grow and scale-up across Europe. Such regulatory advice would be provided by pools of experts. It should in particular support common understanding and interpretation of data-related policies and rules.
• Support the cross-border networking of ecosystems, hubs and accelerators focusing on Fintech, in particular to help startups appraise regulatory issues, to engage with other stakeholders like established financial or insurance firms and to identify opportunities for innovation procurements in Fintech.
• Envisage possible actions and technical solutions to evaluate the impact of regulation and facilitate regulatory compliance in financial areas. This could concern in particular initiatives based on distributed ledger technologies, advanced regtech solutions or algorithmic regulation.

Expected Impact

• Reinforce the position of Europe amongst leaders in Fintech, encouraging cross border collaboration and practical approaches for Fintech experimentation frameworks; enabling Fintech firms to grow and scale-up across Europe.
• Develop common understanding, interpretation and expertise regarding technology evolution and Fintech-related regulations and policies, in particular those concerning data.
• Put Europe in the lead for innovating in regulation, appraising the impact of regulation and facilitating regulatory compliance.

Cross-cutting Priorities

Socio-economic science and humanities