The EU Commission is currently holding a public consultation on FinTech (see here).
FinTech, standing for financial technologies, means the use of technology in the provision of financial service. The term is very broad, it includes the provision of traditional financial services with the use of technology by traditional service providers (e.g. online banking), or the provision of innovative products by innovative startups (e.g. peer-to-peer lending and bitcoin). Creating policy solutions for protecting FinTech customers is one of the current priorities under the Consumer financial services action plan that sees FinTech a major driver for strengthening the EU single market for financial services (see for more here).
The consultation is structured around four broad areas to reflect main opportunities and challenges raised by FinTech:
1. Fostering access to financial services for consumers and businesses;
2. Bringing down operational costs and increasing efficiency for the industry;
3. Making the single market more competitive by lowering barriers to entry; and
4. Balancing greater data sharing and transparency with data security and protection
needs.
Useful material for understanding the opportunities and challenge raised by FinTech is provided by a one day conference on FinTech hosted by the EU Commission. The material is available online, including a video of the conference (see it here).
Based on the results of this public consultation and the work of the FinTech Task Force (see our post here) the EU Commission will determine which actions are required to support the development of FinTech and a technology-driven single market for financial services.
The consultation is open until 15 June 2017, and awaits reposes from consumers and organizations. So if you have any personal experience with using FinTech products and services and or if you have relevant research results, please share them. As always, we will be waiting for the results of the public consultation to report on them to you.
