AIR White Papers

Written by former Office of the Comptroller of the Currency Chief Counsel and AIR Advisory Council member Amy Friend, this paper seeks to analyze and identify the key drivers of the success of the FCA’s innovation initiatives. We at AIR hope it will be an invaluable source of both information and inspiration for the FCA’s regulatory peers throughout the world.

Financial regulators face an enormous challenge: the industry they oversee is digitizing so fast that it’s hard for them to keep pace. They will have to convert to digital age methods or run the risk of failing to detect risks and problems in the financial system. This paper is a Request for Comment (RFC) calling for gradual but urgent conversion of the financial regulatory system to a “digitally-native” framework that equips regulators with the data and analytical tools they need to protect consumers, combat financial crime, and assure financial stability and resilience.

50 years of traditional US regulation aimed at promoting financial inclusion and fairness for consumers has largely failed. This series of six Harvard papers argues that new technology can both protect consumers from harm and widen their access to affordable financial services.

As digital technology transforms financial services, regulators need new ways to accelerate their own learning and decision making, while ensuring that their work is always careful, deliberative, objective and transparent. This paper reflects confidential interviews with US regulators concerned that some government rules and protocols unnecessarily impede their ability to keep pace with technology change in the industry they oversee. Written as a pro bono project by the Buckley Firm, it offers possible steps to address these challenges.