U.S. Government Accountability Office Publishes Report On Fintech Regulation

In March 2018, the United States Government Accountability Office (GAO) published a report on Fintech regulation (the "GAO Report"). The GAO Report assesses how various American regulators can protect consumers of Fintech products and promote regulatory harmonization and innovation.

Overview

One of the major challenges in the United States, like Canada, is that there are many different regulators with responsibilities related to Fintech. The GAO Report identifies ten different federal regulators, many of whom have overlapping objectives, in addition to a number of state regulators and self-regulating industry organizations. Fintech firms consulted for the GAO Report identified the number of different regulators as a source of difficulty in identifying and complying with the various regulations applicable to their business. Numerous regulators were found to make it difficult to predict what approach would be taken by various regulators with differing objectives,