Jude Scott, chief executive of Cayman Finance, believes fintech could revolutionize compliance in financial services and has the potential to streamline processes for firms and regulators. Scott promotes the use of a common ledger—blockchain—as the standard place for verifying customers’ credentials.
Recent money laundering scandals, however, have brought up potential regulatory issues with fintech: Blockchain has become associated with criminal activity due to its use of virtual currencies, and P2P lending can be done anonymously, without following global standards or certification, which would be difficult to trace for regulators.
Scott’s idea includes financial institutions following a global standard set in the common ledger, and customers who are transacting would be “certified and approved” following the standard. Regulators would have access to the ledger and transactions’ metadata, which makes compliance more efficient. Compliance officers would be relieved the burden of screening transactions for risky customers.
While I like Scott’s vision, it would be difficult to implement on a global standard. Current regulations need to be modernized to match the speed of today’s fintech, and regulations need to embrace, rather than fear fintech. Regulations take a long time to pass, and when they do, they might no longer be applicable.
Reference: http://blogs.wsj.com/riskandcompliance/2017/01/26/how-fintech-could-cause-a-revolution-in-compliance/