WASHINGTON - The World Bank has published a report that explores the implications of fintech and the digital transformation of financial services for market outcomes on one side, and regulation and supervision, on the other, and how these interact.
The ongoing digitization of financial services and money creates opportunities to build more inclusive and efficient financial services and promote economic development. Countries should embrace these opportunities and implement policies that enable and encourage safe financial innovation and adoption.
Technological advances are blurring the boundaries of both financial firms and the financial sector. New infrastructures, providers, products, business models, and market structures are shaping market outcomes in profound ways.
As such, it is necessary to ensure that market outcomes remain aligned with core policy objectives as the financial sector continues to transform and policy tradeoffs evolve. This flagship report explores the implications of fintech and the digital transformation of financial services for market outcomes on one side, and regulation and supervision, on the other, and how these interact.
This overview paper provides a high-level perspective for senior policy makers and is accompanied by a set of notes that focus in detail on selected salient issues for a more technical audience.
This digital transformation presents a paradigm shift that has various policy implications, including:
- Foster beneficial innovation and competition, while managing the risks.
- Broaden monitoring horizons and re-assess regulatory perimeters as embedding of financial services blurs the boundaries of the financial sector.
- Be mindful of evolving policy tradeoffs as fintech adoption deepens.
- Review regulatory, supervisory, and oversight frameworks to ensure they remain fit for purpose and enable the authorities to foster a safe, efficient, and inclusive financial system.
- Anticipate market structure tendencies and proactively shape them to foster competition and contestability in the financial sector.
- Modernize and open up financial infrastructures to enable competition and contestability.
- Ensure public money remains fit for the digital world amid rapid advances in private money solutions.
- Pursue strong cross-border coordination and sharing of information and best practices, given the supra-national nature of fintech.
To download the full report, visit: https://documents.worldbank.org/en/publication/documents-reports/documentdetail/099450005162250110/p17300600228b70070914b0b5edf26e2f9f