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CFPB joins Census Bureau's tech sprint
On August 18, the CFPB announced that the Bureau will participate in the Census Bureau’s The Opportunity Project (TOP) “The World Post COVID-19” tech sprint program, comprised of six tech sprints that will focus on post-pandemic challenges. The CFPB is partnering with HUD to lead a tech sprint regarding post-pandemic housing challenges. According to the CFPB, participants will “develop innovative tools to raise the visibility of housing assistance resources” and connect individuals experiencing housing insecurity to such resources. The goal is for “housing assistance resources to land in the hands of landlords, particularly small ones, because, often, they are not prepared to weather significant financial hardships, such as tenants being unable to pay rent, and have fewer resources to manage the demands of running a business,” the CFPB stated.
NYDFS virtual currency techsprint set for March
On January 21, NYDFS announced the details of its first-of-its-kind techsprint focusing on virtual currency that will open on March 1 and culminate on March 12. As previously covered by InfoBytes, the techsprint is a collaboration with the Conference of State Bank Supervisors and the Alliance for Innovative Regulation, and the objective is “to achieve creative and collaborative prototyping as a step toward smarter regulatory reporting in virtual currency.” NYDFS notes that the virtual format will allow flexibility for the techsprint to include a combination of full-day facilitated exercises and self-paced, team-managed efforts. The teams will work to address one of several problem statements, including (i) “[h]ow can DFS achieve real-time or more frequent access to company financial data from virtual currency licensees and receive early warning signs of financial risks to the companies or their customers?” (i) “[h]ow can DFS obtain real-time transaction data from its licensees and automatically analyze the data to safeguard against illicit financing risks?” and (iii) “[h]ow can DFS use tools such as natural language processing, machine learning, and artificial intelligence to identify risks by processing and analyzing supervisory reports that are submitted by licensees in a wide range of formats?”
NYDFS to host first-ever virtual currency techsprint
On October 15, NYDFS, in collaboration with the Conference of State Bank Supervisors and the Alliance for Innovative Regulation, announced that a first-of-its-kind techsprint focusing on virtual currency will take place early 2021. The techsprint will bring together regulators, fintech and virtual currency industry stakeholders, and experts to collaborate on regulatory compliance solutions. Possible solutions may include “process improvements to a functional prototype of a reporting mechanism,” such as Digital Regulatory Reporting (DRR), which will “give regulators instant access to data provided by firms under their supervision.” Based on the takeaways from the techsprint, NYDFS intends to “develop a set of common standards and an open source technical framework for DRR” that may be adopted by NYDFS and other regulatory agencies. As part of the collaboration, future techsprints will also be developed that focus on other types of nonbank entities subject to financial regulation.