Financial regulators from Japan and Switzerland have teamed up to collaborate on FinTech.
The Japanese Financial Services Agency (FSA) has signed a FinTech letter of cooperation with Swiss regulators the Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA), the agencies announced.
FSA said the Cooperation Framework recognises the global nature of innovation in financial services and intends to enhance the relationship with FINMA on FinTech.
The letters said the authorities intend to refer Financial Innovators each other and to provide support to them. The authorities said it intend to share information on FinTech.
The purpose of the collaboration is to provide a framework for co-operation and referrals between the innovation functions of each authority. The framework centres on a referral mechanism which will enable the authorities to refer financial innovator between their respective innovation functions.
FSa said in the letter, “Given the global nature of innovation in financial services, it is particularly important that we are able to both share information, and ensure the efficient entry of financial innovators into our respective markets.”
Representatives of the authorities intend to meet or hold conference calls to discuss the issues of common interest and share their experience in FinTech and Innovative Financial Services.
Earlier this year, the Singapore FinTech Association (SFA) and the FinTech Association of Japan (FAJ) formed a partnership, with the pair signing a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to ‘foster greater FinTech cooperation’.
They said they will work together to collaborate on joint projects and initiatives to support FinTech innovation and development. It will be used to raise the profile of the Japanese FinTech industry and promote Singapore as a destination for Japanese business.
The Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) also recently said it intends to regulate some ICOs, either under anti-money laundering laws or as securities. FINMA is publishing guidelines, which complement its earlier FINMA Guidance 04/2017, setting out how it intends to treat enquiries from ICO organisers.
With no ICO-specific regulation, relevant case law or consistent legal doctrine, FINMA said it plans to consider regulating the ICOs on a case-by-case basis, with each case ‘depending on the manner in which ICOs are designed’.
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