On March 29 the Chair of the Financial Supervision Commission (FSC) – Boyko Atanasov opened the Capital forum – “Fintech and Insurtech Summit”. At the special invitation of Mr. Alexey Lazarov – editor-in-chief of Capital magazine, he spoke about the main challenges, among which are: clarity about the functioning and implementation of innovations in the FinTech sector, the balance of the innovation risks versus consumer benefits ; equilibrium between promoting innovations and maintaining levels of customer and business protection against potential negative events; assessment and adjustment of the regulatory framework against changes or completely new business models and the resulting potential risks.
The FSC Chair raised questions about why we need innovative FinTech products and how to create a regulatory framework that triggers development rather than restrictions, promotes progress rather than maintaining the status quo, provokes creative thinking rather than looking for legal obstacles to growth. “My belief is that laws and regulations change namely because of new products, services and technologies. I am convinced that the administration should support the business and be in a position of exceptional visibility and audibility, both for new products and for development trends”, Mr. Boyko Atanasov also shared.
The digital future of Europe and working in sync with pan-European regulations were within the scope of the topics covered by Mr. Atanasov. The creation of the European Blockchain Sandbox, the legislative proposal for a Regulation on Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) and the Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA), as part of the Digital Finance Package, aim to increase the quality of the services offered in the financial sector by stimulating the development of financial innovations, while establishing the appropriate levels of security and their protection. Relative to the Bulgarian capital market, this would mean an increase in its attractiveness, both for local and foreign investors.
The FSC Chair – Boyko Atanasov, assured the participants of the event that the FSC is focused on its main functions – the protection of users of financial services, ensuring a stable non-banking financial sector and creating an environment in which the business can operate without obstacles. In this regard, he pointed out that the purpose of the FSC is to consider financial innovation through the prism of these main functions of the Commission for the capital, insurance and pension insurance market.
Since 2020, the Financial Supervision Commission has been on the innovation map through the Innovation Hub, the mobile application presented a few months ago – FSC Mobile, as well as the building of a Unified Information System (UIS), the idea of which is to reduce the administrative burden, to obtain full digitization of administrative services and to have connectivity with European regulators at a modern digital level. The ultimate goal is to save business and people time.
Users and supervisees are also currently facilitated with access to information via FSC Mobile – the Commission’s own mobile application, which provides additional convenience by providing non-banking financial sector participants with up-to-date news, a calendar of events and a reference facility.
“In the last 3 years, the FSC has been the balancer of the non-banking financial sector, as well as a business partner. I believe that the FinTech industry and the regulator are one system, and together we will ensure that customers are protected when using some of the most innovative FinTech financial products, and together we will continue to build the digital future”, said the FCS Chair to the participants of the event.