Several global financial regulators are forming a new alliance to promote the growth of financial technologies, including blockchain and distributed registry technology (DLT) in general.
The UK Financial Supervisory Authority (FCA) on Tuesday announced the launch of the Global Financial Innovation Network (GFIN) initiative in conjunction with 11 other regulators from jurisdictions such as Hong Kong, Australia and the UAE.
The statement says that GFIN will primarily work as a network for regulators in which they will be able to discuss legislative policies regarding financial technologies. In addition, GFIN contributes to the creation of a "global sandbox", which will offer start-ups "an environment in which it will be possible to test cross-border regulatory solutions."
Even though the document presents some details about the plan, FCA stated that the new alliance was formed after discussions of the idea of creating a global regulatory sandbox in February this year.
Among the 50 responses received during that discussion, the FCA stated that one of the key issues was focused on how regulators around the world can work together on pilot cross-border payments based on DLT and regulate the offerings of primary placements of tokens that often go beyond limits of the borders of one state.
It is noteworthy that several GFIN members, including the Monetary Authority of Singapore, the Monetary Authority of Hong Kong and the financial market regulator of Abu Dhabi, are already working on cross-border payment corridors for DLT.
Along with the announcement, the group jointly published a background document, which asked for feedback on the initiative of GFIN before October 14.
Last month, for the last (fourth) cohort of start-ups of its regulatory sandbox, the UK Financial Supervisory Authority (FCA) selected 11 start-ups related to blockchain and distributed registry technology. The last set made up almost 40% of the 29 companies that got into the "sandbox".
The FCA sandbox was launched in June 2016 to allow enterprises to test "innovative products, services, business models and mechanisms for their implementation" on the market with a temporary FCA resolution.