CFTC Chief Innovation Officer Describes Development Of LabCFTC Initiative

CFTC Chief Innovation Officer and Director of LabCFTC Daniel Gorfine explained the purpose of the LabCFTC initiative and the agency's new orientation toward FinTech.

In remarks before the 33rd annual FIA Futures & Options Expo in Chicago, Illinois, Director Gorfine stated that FinTech covers broad swaths of financial activity and is characterized by rapid pace of innovation driven by increases in computing power, efforts to disintermediate traditional actors and entry of a variety of non-traditional institutions from different industries into the financial space. He noted the ubiquity of the internet in the current wave of innovation.

While recognizing that FinTech benefits the public in a variety of ways, Director Gorfine warned that innovation is accompanied by risk. In particular, he highlighted that technological disintermediation of historical actors and new business models pose challenges to current regulation and raise new hazards around data security,