2020 Global COVID-19 FinTech Regulatory Rapid Assessment Study

The World Bank and the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance jointly publishes the Global COVID-19 FinTech Regulatory Rapid Assessment Study to understand the impact of COVID-19 on the regulation of FinTech and regulatory innovation initiatives. One hundred and eighteen central banks and financial regulators from 114 jurisdictions contributed to the research, which was supported by the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO).The COVID-19 pandemic presents unprecedented challenges to the global economy, including the provision and regulation of digital financial services and FinTech activities in both advanced and emerging market and developing economies. How have central banks and financial regulators been coping with remote working, limited access to IT infrastructure and data, the prioritisation of resources, and coordination domestically and internationally amid a global pandemic? Have they shifted their regulatory stance towards FinTech, adapted their regulatory approach, revamped their supervisory practices and/or devised bespoke regulatory measures to respond to both the opportunities and the risks? Will the increasingly digitised provision of financial services spur more innovation and digitalisation by regulatory authorities? What kind of support and assistance are regulatory authorities currently seeking to embrace the opportunities, and mitigate the challenges of COVID-19? These are some of the questions that the World Bank-CCAF research team set out to answer through this Global COVID-19 FinTech Regulatory Rapid Assessment Study.The research team conducted semi-structured interviews and gathered offline responses from 118 financial regulatory authorities in 114 jurisdictions between June and August 2020, with 66% of respondents from emerging market and developing economies. It is thanks to these regulators’ generous offering of time and support under extraordinary circumstances that such a globally representative study was possible.This comprehensive and valuable dataset offers a unique view into the world of regulators as they observe and respond to the latest FinTech market developments, assess and manage risks, respond to challenges, and harness opportunities. The sector-wide and FinTech-specific regulatory measures that they have taken in light of COVID-19, and the most pressing internal challenges, are observable. It is possible to see the pace and scale of regulatory innovation initiatives, and how these have evolved since the onset of the pandemic. Many of the regulatory experiences and learnings shared by these authorities will be beneficial for their peers and the global regulatory community to reference, emulate and adapt as their own