Global Fintech Regulation and Its Reform Trends

Propelled by a combination of policy enablers,increasing investments,and the COVID-19 pandemic,the global financial technology(fintech) industry has entered a period of rapid growth in recent years.Yet it is important to note that poor regulation and weak supervision might produce risks and shocks to financial stability,business competition,social equity,and environmental resources.The encouraging approach toward fintech development adopted by major global economies over the past decade has ignored regulation to varying degrees,resulting in unbalanced and inadequate supervision,which has been falling short of meeting public concerns effectively.Since 2019,international discussions on how to regulate fintech have become more and more heated.It has been widely agreed that,to regulate fintech effectively,three pillars must be established—data,competition,and financial regulatory rules.Given the increasing challenges posed by large technology firms (big techs)to financial regulation,this paper proposes to prioritize entity-based regulation,with a focus on reforming the rules concerning operational resilience and competition.China should keep a close eye on international trends and learn to devise appropriate rules for entity-based regulation,which will prove necessary to guide the steady,sound,and sustainable development of its fintech industry.

Anti-Monopoly Regulation of Digital Platforms

Characterized as they are by dynamic competition,cross-border operation,the network effect and oligopoly competition,digital platforms present a serious and complex monopoly problem,one that undermines competition,damages consumers’ interests,suppresses the vitality of innovation and hinders high-quality development.They should therefore be brought under stricter anti-monopoly regulation.The traditional regulatory cycle of “stricter regulation brings everything to a standstill;looser regulation brings chaos in its wake” is a chronic problem in China’s market regulation,so the anti-monopoly regulation of digital platforms needs to avoid this regulatory paradox.To address digital platforms’ two-sided markets,dynamic competition and disruptive innovation,we need to create appropriate new theories of anti-monopoly regulation by establishing the principle of positive,inclusive and prudent regulation based on the concept of modesty.In the current context,efforts to strengthen regulation do not lay undue emphasis on tighter regulation and heavier penalties,but rather focus on regulatory transformation and innovation,aiming thereby to effectively improve regulation.Good law is the premise of good governance.It is necessary to speed up the revision of the Anti-Monopoly Law to include provisions for improving digital competition rules in order to provide high-quality regulatory systems.Actively promoting efficient,inclusive and prudent regulation,fair and impartial regulation,collaborative and integrated regulation,incentive-based regulation,credit regulation and intelligent regulation on the basis of good law,along with technology-enabled regulation,is a good governance approach to realizing anti-monopoly platform regulations.