FCA Announces #ProjectInnovate

Hard on the heels of the Transforming Finance workshop, the FCA announced in a speech by CEO Martin Wheatley last week that it will support innovators by: 

• providing 'advice on compliance' to firms who are developing new models or products advice so they can navigate the regulatory system;

• looking for areas where the system itself needs to adapt to new technology or broader change – rather than the other way round; and

• launching an incubator to help innovative, small financial businesses ready themselves for regulatory authorisation.

The umbrella term for these initiatives is "Project Innovate". I look forward to hearing more about it, including contact details etc.

Crowdinvesting, JOBS and The AIFMD

Interesting to consider the extent to which the implementation of the Alternative Investment Fund Managers Directive provides an opportunity to introduce some certainty and proportionate regulation for direct finance platforms via the small firms registration option - perhaps along the lines suggested in the submission to the Breedon Taskforce and subject to criteria of the kind referred to in Title III to the JOBS Act designed to enable crowdinvesting.

Is it too much to expect Business Innovation and Skills and the Treasury to have already considered and discussed this?