Today, Republican leader of the House Financial Services Committee Patrick McHenry (NC-10) appeared on Laura Shin’s cryptocurrency podcast, Unchained, to discuss his newly reintroduced bill, the Financial Services Innovation Act of 2019, to modernize and streamline how innovators interact with regulators.
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To listen to the full podcast, click here or the image above.
On the goal of the Financial Services Innovation Act of 2019:
“What this bill is about is ensuring that our regulators are innovation forward, innovation permissioned, and situated to say ‘yes’ rather than the default ‘no.’ I want the default to be yes to innovation, not the current default of no. This would allow agencies to provide space for new innovations in the marketplace,” said Ranking Member McHenry.
On fostering financial services innovation through the federal regulators:
“What we’re trying to do is get the regulators to think of this as beta testing. To think of this as a small change to see how it works, and if it works, then you go forward at scale, and if it doesn’t work then you stop it, and that’s what we’re trying to work through.”
On ensuring American competitiveness through financial innovation:
“When it comes to the question of a digitized US dollar, I think that is a reasonable next step for our central bank. … I think, as an American, I would like to have a response to Alipay, and we should not allow the Chinese to write the rules-of-the-road of international finance. And we, therefore, have to have a more competitive mindset about ensuring there is international commerce using a system that is not Chinese based.”
On working across the aisle on financial innovation:
“We have interest from a number of Senators, on the Republican and Democratic side of the aisle, to team up with us on this, and we do have a bipartisan group of folks, among Republicans and Democrats in the House that want to have clarity for cryptocurrencies.”
Background:
H.R. 4767 requires federal regulators to create Financial Services Innovation Offices (FSIOs) within their agencies to foster innovation in financial services.
Companies may apply for an “enforceable compliance agreement” with the FSIOs that, if accepted, will allow them to provide an innovative product or service under an alternative compliance plan, which waives or modifies regulation that is out-of-date or unduly burdensome.
Learn more about Ranking Member McHenry’s legislation here
Listen to the full Unchained podcast here.