Whirlwind

October 19, 2018Mallory Kwiatkowski

It’s been a while. In Washington, the months of July and August are often said to be the “slow months,” with busy professionals hitting snooze on email notifications and maybe even taking a trip or two. In the world of regtech though, it has been a whirlwind -- all summer long, and into the fall.

Some key gatherings were highlights in catalyzing progress in how regtech can help solve issues facing the financial and regulatory arenas, especially on AML. One was a hackathon, or “tech sprint” held by the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), in which I participated. Over 400 people spent three days designing better ways to combat the money laundering that funds terrorism and global trafficking in drugs, weapons, endangered animals, and human beings. The exercise produced working projects on a range of promising solutions, such as pooling anonymized data for machine-learning analysis, which would enable authorities to uncover large-scale crime rings while still safeguarding the public’s privacy. It is really exciting to see the movement coming out of these sprints and I know I’ll have more to tell you soon.

Back to the idea of July and August being slow, summer months -- in just a matter of days this summer, three events signaled accelerating progress in the United States. On July 31, the Treasury Department issued its long-awaited report urging US bank regulators to foster innovative financial technology, or “fintech.” A few hours later, Comptroller of the Currency Joseph Otting announced that he will implement Treasury’s recommendation to create a new kind of national bank charter for fintech companies. And a few days later, Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection (BCFP) Acting Director Mick Mulvaney pledged interagency collaboration on innovation and said his agency has joined other countries in a new Global Financial Innovation Network, or GFIN.

These efforts are great opportunities to try to catch our regulatory system up to the rapidly evolving technologies that are available.

This is a topic I’ll be addressing on the Revolution Stage at Money 20/20 in Las Vegas. If you’ll be there, I hope you’ll join me on Monday, October 22nd. I’ll be addressing the Regtech Revolution: A New Era of Digitally-Native Regulation. Hereis a sneak peek at what you can expect from my talk. I’ll also be MC of the Sunday Regulatory Track again this year, which will include a regulator town hall. I hope to see everyone there.

A Few Notes

Going forward, look out for the newsletter from me about every other month. In the meantime, please keep up with my Barefoot Innovation podcast - we’ll let you know whenever new episodes are released. We have some amazing guests in the queue for you.

Check out the lists below to see some of what I’ve been up to and where I’ll be this fall.

Upcoming Events

Money 20/20, October 21-24, Las Vegas

Singapore Fintech Festival, November 12-16, Singapore

LendIt Europe, November 19-20, London

ABA Financial Crimes Enforcement Conference, December 2-4, National Harbor, MD

RegTech Rising, December 3-5, London

Recent Events

Lombard Risk Conference: Beyond 2018: What’s Ahead? September 13, New York, NY

Finovate Fall, September 26, New York, NY

NFCC Connect Conference, October 2, Dallas, TX

CFTC TAC Meeting, October 5, Washington, DC