InfoBytes Blog
FDIC Chairman stresses innovation in banking
On August 2, FDIC Chairman Jelena McWilliams spoke before the Financial Conduct Authority’s 2019 Global AML and Financial Crime TechSprint in Washington, D.C. on the importance of promoting innovation within the banking industry and ramping up efforts to help banks embrace new technologies. McWilliams noted that she is “impatient for transformation,” especially in areas that would assist banks—particularly community banks—in eliminating regulatory uncertainty, adopting new technologies, managing risks, or partnering with fintech startups to improve regulatory compliance in areas such as Bank Secrecy Act/anti-money laundering rules. McWilliams discussed the FDIC’s new office of innovation (FDiTech), which was created to support these goals. In particular, McWilliams indicated that the FDIC would support collaboration with developers, institutions, and regulators to pilot new products and services, with the goal of publishing the results of these pilots to facilitate understanding of what worked, what did not, and methods of improvement going forward. According to McWilliams, “[b]y promoting these developments and encouraging our FDIC-supervised institutions to voluntarily adopt a more advanced technological footing, we can help foster the transformation of the community banking sector. In turn, the institutions we supervise can reach greater efficiency with products and services that are more attractive to consumers.”