Regulation at the Forefront We believe one of the best advantages and toughest challenges in FinTech is managing the regulatory environment. It’s a challenging blocker for startups—products can take years to develop, licenses can take even longer to acquire, and balancing innovation with regulatory risk can be akin to walking a tightrope. Working with regulators and managing compliance is a core function of the business. There is an old adage in Silicon Valley: “Move fast and break things.” We caution FinTechs at every stage to NOT work this way. In fact, FinTech’s version of “move fast and break things” should be “move methodically and respect regulation.” For the last decade, FinTech existed in relative obscurity amongst giant 昀椀nancial institutions 15 that represented $16 trillion in market cap . That has changed dramatically in the last 1-2 years as more regulatory attention has been paid to the industry as it achieved scale. Failures have occurred where overall infrastructure (both tech and people) limitations had not been tested. When this happens at scale, as we have seen recently, it increases the level of scruti- ny to be incurred by one of the many regulatory bodies that oversee the vertical. Moreover, it becomes a clarion call for more attention likely to be focused on consumer protections, disclosures, capital requirements, and licensing. as fintechs rise to compete with incumbents on their turf, they will have to play by the same rules16 A not-too-distant future INFRASTRUCTURE IS ENABLING INNOVATION SHARE VISIT PG 10