Regulators urged to take the lead on EU digital finance platform
Industry stakeholders have welcomed the European Commission’s new platform to connect regulators with fintech practitioners, but warned of challenges posed by a fragmented regulatory landscape.
The European Commission launched the EU Digital Finance Platform in April, in an effort to bring together industry and public authorities to encourage interaction.
The platform includes a Digital Finance Observatory and gives access to a European Forum for Innovation Facilitators. This includes meetings to address various areas of innovation from tokenisation and artificial intelligence to open finance and crypto-assets.
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Marius Galdikas, chief executive of online banking service provider ConnectPay, has suggested that the EU Digital Finance Platform could help address some of the problems with cross-border payments regulation, such as the variance in implementation and interpretation across countries. And building a strong community will be one of the defining factors for its success.
“The platform could become home for open and transparent discussions regarding any future initiatives,” he said. “This could put Europe at the forefront of developing digital finance. However, the key moment to note is that regulatory authorities should be actively participating in the conversation.
“From where I stand, fintech players have always wanted to share their insights first-hand, which could propel the market forward. To have a dedicated platform to so would be great — that is, if someone on the other end is actually listening.”
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For example, the absence of a unified approach to Payment Initiation Services and Account Information Services, hinders the roll-out of API, he suggested, creating difficulties for fintech companies when they aim to scale across the single market.
He also pointed out the need for regulators to join in the same capacity as other participants and be open to having transparent discussions.
“It’s vital that regulators take the lead and, even more, draw attention to ‘hot’ topics that the fintech community — or other financial services professionals — could respond to,” he added. “At the moment, the platform’s capabilities are still more MVP-like, so it will be interesting to follow how it evolves further and builds a productive dialogue amongst market players.”
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