The Federal
Reserve Bank of New York has formed a group of financial technology experts to
advise it on the rapidly evolving fintech industry.
The
advisory group has ten members, including Google’s Ulku Rowe, the director of
financial services for its cloud unit; Moelis & Co. chief data officer Lena
Mass-Cresnik; and Lee Braine from the chief technology office at Barclays,
according to a statement Friday from the New York Fed. The first meeting is
scheduled for April 1.
The regional
bank is seeking their view of emerging issues in fintech that could affect its
mission, which includes regulating financial institutions to ensure a safe
banking system. The Financial Stability Board said in a February report on
fintech that many firms in the growing industry offer products that
“potentially challenge” traditional business models in finance.
“The fintech
advisory group will provide the New York Fed with a more complete picture of
the rapidly evolving fintech landscape,” Kevin Stiroh, head of the New York
Fed’s supervision group, in the statement from the central bank branch.
The group will
meet twice a year to present views to the New York Fed and establish
“clear points of contact” for the regional branch of the central bank. The
initial members have a broad mix of expertise, with representatives including
incumbent financial institutions that may be disrupted by new fintech
entrants.
Andrew Boyajian,
head of banking at TransferWise, is part of the initial group, according to the
statement. TransferWise, founded in 2010 to cheaply transfer money globally,
says on its website that Richard Branson and PayPal founders Max Levchin
and Peter Thiel are among its investors.
The other
fintech advisory group members are DTCC chief executive officer Michael Bodson;
International Business Machines Corp.’s chief analytics officer and chief
economist Martin Fleming; Massachusetts Institute of Technology senior advisor
and former Commodity Futures Trading Commission chairman Gary Gensler; Cooley
special counsel Patrick Murck; Sonal Shah, the executive director of the Beeck
Center for Social Impact and Innovation; and David Waller, the head of data
science and analytics at consulting firm Oliver Wyman.
“The
advisory group will also gather insights that may inform our interaction with
market participants and institutions, our training and hiring efforts, and the
application of innovative approaches for internal business use,” Stiroh
said.
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