Interview
Innovation and regulation in the digital age - Interview with Jo Ann Barefoot, AIR
Wednesday 13 January 2021 08:34 CET | Editor: Oana Ifrim | Interview
Jo Ann Barefoot, CEO and Cofounder of the
Alliance for Innovative Regulation, shares her thoughts about digitisation, regtech, digital identity, financial inclusion, and how the new technologies are transforming financial regulation
Could you please tell us what drew you to fintech and regtech? Please let us know what kind of personal and professional journey you had along the way that led you to become such an important voice of the industry.
I’ve spent my whole career working with financial regulation -- as a US bank regulator, a staff expert for the US Congress, and in the private sector. I’ve focused mainly on regulatory efforts to promote consumer protection and financial inclusion. Several years ago, I spent two years at Harvard University as a senior fellow, researching financial innovation. One day I had an epiphany -- that fintech innovation has the potential to solve many, and maybe even most, of the problems we try to address through regulation, especially for financial consumers. And then in the next moment, I also realised that this potential would never be realised unless these new innovations are wisely regulated. As a former bank regulator myself, I knew this would be challenging because regulators are generally not designed to keep up with rapidly changing technology. Accordingly, I founded AIR, the Alliance for Innovative Regulation, to help solve that problem. We work to catalyse and guide conversion of the financial regulatory system to digitally-native form, in order to foster fair finance.