A network designed to enhance coordination among federal and state regulators to facilitate financial innovation was announced Tuesday by the federal consumer financial protection agency, which said it had invited all state regulators to join.
Called the American Consumer Financial Innovation Network (ACFIN), the initial members of the group are the attorneys general of Alabama, Arizona, Georgia, Indiana, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Utah, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) said in a release.
According to the CFPB, the network “enhances shared objectives such as competition, consumer access, and financial inclusion.” The agency said it also is intended to promote “regulatory certainty for innovators” and will seek to “keep pace with market innovations and help ensure they are free from fraud, discrimination, and deceptive practices.”
The bureau said members of the group will share information to facilitate coordination among them and “coordinate on innovation-related policies and programs.”
According to its charter (released Tuesday by the CFPB), the new group has three objectives: establish coordination among members to facilitate innovation that enhances competition, consumer access, or financial inclusion; minimize unnecessary regulatory burdens and bolster regulatory certainty for innovative consumer financial products and services; and keep pace with the evolution of technology in markets for consumer financial products and services in order to help ensure those markets are free from fraud, discrimination, and deceptive practices.
Membership in the group is open to state attorneys general, state financial regulators and federal financial regulators, the bureau said.
CFPB and State Regulators Launch American Consumer Financial Innovation Network