Nearly a year after then-acting US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) Chairman J. Christopher Giancarlo actively promoted FinTech innovation as a key to economic growth, he has minted a groundbreaking FinTech collaboration arrangement with the UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). The Arrangement, signed on February 19, is the first FinTech agreement for the CFTC with a foreign equivalent. It is intended to facilitate information sharing, collaboration, and support of the CFTC and FCA’s FinTech initiatives, and will also facilitate referrals of FinTech companies interested in entering different markets.

Much like his enthusiastic embrace of FinTech indicated in speeches in March 2017, January 2017, and September 2016, Chairman Giancarlo’s public comments on the Arrangement alluded to the need for regulators to be forward-thinking and adapt to the pace of digital markets.