2nd Annual FinTech Forum in Delaware
Last week on December 11, 2019, I joined J.C. Boggs, and Dan Quan, fellow advisory board members at the First State FinTech Lab in Wilmington, Delaware for a Compliance and Regulatory Discussion. Boggs is a Partner at King & Spalding and organized the panel and Quan is a Managing Partner at Banks Street Advisory and previously was the head of the innovation program at the CFPB. The Fintech Forum was sponsored by the New Castle County Chamber of Commerce. John Collins one of the co-founders of the First State FinTech Lab was also a speaker at multiple other programs throughout the day.
During our panel, the speakers covered the chartering choices under consideration for fintech participants including state charters, state limited purpose charters, state trust company charters, ILC charters, OCC fintech charter and other variations. The speakers also spoke about state money transmitting licensing laws and the need for further harmonization and supervisory/compliance uniformity as well as some of the other ongoing compliance "hot topics" including the Madden/valid when made issue, the new CRA rules that were expected and indeed released last week, CSBS efforts to obtain greater state synthesis on the law and supervision of state level entities as well as domestic and international sandbox initiatives and outcomes. There also was lively discussion among the panelists and with the audience on issues involving bank and fintech collaborative models with respect to interest rate exportation and other compliance issues. Additionally, there were interesting comments regarding the competing other non-bank models arising in connection with the brave new world of machine learning, artificial intelligence, block chain, distributed ledger technology, Big Data, and other developments that will challenge the existing banking and related financial services regulatory frameworks, as well as completely upend the business logistics models and other technology used in current ecommerce platforms.
Underscoring the discussion were various comments and observations about what might be expected or pursued in Delaware as part of a FinTech Future. Indeed, previously I had contributed to a broad ranging joint effort of the Delaware Prosperity Partnership; First State FinTech Lab and University of Delaware's Institute for Public Administration which issued a report on those topics which can be found here: https://www.choosedelaware.com/data/reports-publications/delaware-in-a-fintech-future/.
Others at the conference spoke to the interesting marketplace participants involving payment pioneers along with early to mid-stage companies already operating successfully in Delaware in the FinTech space. You will recall that I am a former Bank Commissioner for the State of Delaware and innovation in the financial services field and further growth of the sector remains a top priority for the business and political communities in Delaware.
Tim McTaggart December 16, 2019