金融科技时代与美国的金融监管改革

Regulating FinTech

2008年的金融危机使美国的金融监管方式发生了重大变化,尤其《多德-弗兰克法案》对金融业进行全面系统监管的力度之高,是罗斯福新政以来从未有过的。但是,美国自金融危机以来实施的金融监管改革,是以过时的金融服务内容和金融服务提供方式为前提的。金融监管未能考虑到金融科技公司的兴起及其在各个方面引领的变化。事实上,从银行业的运营方式,到融资方式,甚至货币本身形式,都发生了根本性变化。在金融科技时代,这些变化要求全面重新认识金融监管。文章认为,监管机构把重点放在"大而不能倒"的大型金融机构风险防范方面,从而忽视了规模小且分散的金融市场引发的风险,而这些风险在性质上与大型金融机构引发的风险是不同的。由于分散的金融科技市场更容易受到经济危机的冲击、透明度更低,而且更可能助长市场参与者采取过度冒险行为,所以这些风险在许多方面比大型金融机构引发的风险更大。文章最后提出了应对金融科技独特风险和脆弱性的监管对策。

The financial crisis of 2008 has led to dramatic changes in the way that finance is regulated: the Dodd-Frank Act imposed broad and systemic regulation on the industry on a level not seen since the New Deal. But the financial regulatory reforms enacted since the crisis have been premised on an outdated idea of what financial services look like and how they are provided. Regulation has failed to take into account the rise of financial technology(or "fintech") firms and the fundamental changes they have ushered in on a variety of fronts, from the way that banking works, to the way that capital is raised, even to the very form of money itself. These changes call for a wide-ranging reconceptualization of financial regulation in an era of technology-enabled finance. In particular, this Article argues that regulators’ focus on preventing the risks associated with "too big to fail" institutions overlooks the conceptually distinct risks associated with small, decentralized financial markets. In many ways, these risks can be greater than those presented by large institutions because decentralized fintech markets are more vulnerable to adverse economic shocks, less transparent to regulators, and more likely to encourage excessively risky behavior by market participants. The article concludes by sketching out a variety of regulatory responses that better correspond to fintech’s particular risks and rewards.