Federal: AFC Comment Letter to OCC Community Bank Digitalization RFI

Chief Counsel’s Office
Attention: Comment Processing
Office of the Comptroller of the Currency
400 7th Street, SW, Suite 3E-218
Washington, DC 20219

Re: Request for Information Regarding Community Bank Digitalization

Dear Acting Comptroller Hood,

On behalf of The American Fintech Council (AFC),  I am submitting this comment letter in response to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency’s (OCC) Request for Information Regarding Community Bank Digitalization (RFI).

AFC’s mission is to promote an innovative, transparent, inclusive, and customer-centric financial system by fostering responsible innovation in financial services, and encouraging sound public policy. AFC members are at the forefront of fostering competition in consumer finance and pioneering ways to better serve underserved consumer segments and geographies. AFC represents a significant number of community and regional banks that have pursued digitalization and innovation as a core feature of their business models. Through this digitalization, our members are improving access to financial services and increasing overall competition in the financial services industry by supporting the responsible growth of lending and lowering the cost of financial transactions, allowing them to help meet demand for high-quality, affordable financial products. Based on AFC’s membership, we are uniquely positioned to address the RFI’s questions regarding community bank digitalization.

We commend the OCC’s focus on understanding the opportunities and challenges facing community banks as they engage in digitalization efforts by issuing this RFI. This RFI builds on the longstanding engagement and recognition by the OCC regarding the importance of dedicating adequate funding to the staffing and development of programs designed to ensure community banks are able to digitalize their operations, products, and services effectively through bank-fintech partnerships and emerging technologies. The OCC continues to prioritize encouraging responsible innovation through bank-fintech partnerships.  

This commitment is exemplified best within the OCC’s most recent Congressional Budget Justification where the agency noted that “[t]he OCC has long embraced a forward-looking approach to innovation. In today’s digital age, innovation is not optional—it is essential. Financial technology, when deployed responsibly, can broaden access, enhance efficiency, and deepen relationships between banks and their customers” and that “[t]he digitalization of financial services is not a trend—it is a transformation.”  AFC is aligned with the agency’s priority in adapting to digitalization in order to meet its mission. The efforts that OCC has pursued in this space are a positive step towards ensuring that emerging issues within the modern banking system are properly understood throughout the agency and particularly by examination teams. As we have previously noted, there are a number of areas where the prudential regulators, including the OCC, can encourage the continued development of responsible innovation and digitalization in financial services.

Overall, AFC views the OCC’s longstanding commitment to fostering responsible innovation through bank-fintech partnerships as crucial to ensuring community bank digitalization efforts succeed. To build upon this longstanding commitment, AFC offers its views below regarding the

I. Benefits of Community Bank Digitalization for Both Consumers and The Industry;

II. Community Bank Digitalization Activities; and

III. Challenges Community Banks Face in Response to Their Digitalization Efforts and Opportunities The OCC can Pursue to Encourage Further Digitalization.

We thank you for your careful consideration of the views presented below.

I. Benefits of Community Bank Digitalization for Both Consumers and The Industry

Digitalization in financial services is not a new issue. However, the manner and pace that financial institutions, including community banks, are choosing to digitalize has rapidly changed since the 2008 financial crisis. Much of this digitalization in financial services is part of the broader macroeconomic trend towards digitalization throughout society. Particularly, in the financial services industry, we have seen banks and fintech companies operate together in order to improve digital financial service offerings to consumers.

While fintech companies arose out of the combination of a dearth of consumer trust in traditional financial institutions in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis and increasing demand for modern, digital-first banking services, they quickly started to form partnerships with financial institutions as a way to operate effectively in the financial services industry.  Through partnerships with financial institutions, particularly community banks, fintech companies have been able to increase access to historically underserved communities, expand offerings, and create a robust and competitive market that allows community banks to digitalize their products and services, as well as expand their offerings nationally. As noted in multiple reports by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), responsible fintech providers provide the opportunity for significant consumer and market benefits.  As we will discuss in more detail below, these benefits are not coincidental to bank-fintech partnerships and the digitalization it has fostered, but instead, they are central to the robust market that has developed over the past 15 years.

a. Community Bank Digitalization Increases Competition and Improved Long- Term Viability of Community Banks

Digitalization for community banks holds a critical strategic role in maintaining their viability within the financial services industry. While community banks generally show more profitable returns on assets than larger financial institutions, digitalization poses significant potential challenges to community banks due to high initial investment costs and implementation challenges.  Given the more limited resources that community banks have compared to their larger counterparts, these institutions must develop a culture around innovation and digitalization that has full buy-in from the Board, executive officers, and staff to ensure a successful digitalization journey.

After ensuring proper stakeholder buy-in internally, community banks seeking to innovate generally face a decision to “build, buy, or partner.” Each option comes with challenges and opportunities. For example, digitalizing through building out internal capabilities has the benefit of ensuring that the community bank has full control over the digital product or service they offer. However, this option can be exceptionally costly and time-consuming, due to the significant human capital investments needed to ensure the digital buildout comes to fruition. Alternatively, buying a digital solution can ensure a faster go-to-market timeline and minimize the digitalization costs to the community bank. However, purchasing a solution from a fintech company can pose challenges if the proper due diligence is not conducted on the fintech company and its solution to ensure that both the company and the solution are a proper fit for the needs of the community bank. Further, purchased solutions may not provide the technical support needed by the community bank.

Pursuing bank-fintech partnerships has been crucial to improving competition in the financial services industry both domestically and abroad. According to a June 2024 literature review conducted by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, there is ample evidence to support the view that the rise of fintech has put pressure on the market share and pricing power of incumbent banks. They also note the rise in community bank and fintech partnerships.6 However, it is incumbent upon both the bank and fintech company to ensure that they conduct significant due diligence to ensure that there is a proper fit between the firms and that the partnership will likely result in success.

In practice, community banks often pursue a mix of all three options, depending on the business strategy, needs, and resources of a given community bank. Ultimately, when understood holistically and executed strategically, pursuing each of these options can be mutually-reinforcing, in turn, helping community banks effectively digitalize their offerings and operations, and thus, thrive in the competitive financial services industry. In turn, increased digitalization throughout the community bank space can lead to a virtuous cycle of innovation and consumer benefit by pushing companies to continue seeking new services or providing these services in unique ways to increase their market share and effectively serve more consumers.

b. Community Banks Pursue Digitalization in Response to Digital-First Consumer Demand

Strong consumer demand for digital first financial products and services has been a significant market force driving further digitalization throughout the financial services industry and particularly within community banks. For example, within bank-fintech partnerships, we have seen partnerships that started within one vertical, such as lending or payments services, quickly developed to include other services, such as deposit taking. The consumer demand, which has been a driving force for these innovative products and services, shows no sign of slowing, regardless of market or non-market forces and their impacts on bank-fintech partnerships.  

AFC recognizes that this rapid growth in the parameters of the partnerships does not come without the need to ensure that both the innovative financial institutions and fintech companies develop processes and staffing resources in key areas that are commensurate with the growth in the partnership. At no point should a financial institution grow in an unmanageable manner that places unnecessary risk on the services they provide and the consumers they serve. To do so would be antithetical to the purpose underpinning bank-fintech partnerships, namely, to serve consumers more efficiently and effectively than has been previously done. Equally important is the OCC’s consideration of the perspectives provided in response to this RFI. Crafting policies based on pragmatic and broad stakeholder input will the continued development of bank-fintech partnerships in a manner that benefits consumers and addresses the significant demand for improved products and services through digital-first offerings.

Concurrently, there is also significant industry demand for innovative products and services that can assist financial institutions’ enterprise or operational efforts related to digitalization. Generally, we refer to bank-fintech partnerships that focus on the digitalization of enterprise or operational efforts as “fintech supplier partnerships”.  These fintech supplier partnerships can dramatically improve the operational efficiencies of community banks by changing once time-consuming manual processes, such as regulatory reporting, into standardized, digital-first processes.

In addition, by leveraging the innovative fintech supplier offerings, community banks can also improve their risk management and compliance practices. For example, fintech supplier firms with a focus on Bank Secrecy Act/Anti-Money Laundering (BSA/AML) compliance leverage large language model (LLM) artificial intelligence (AI) tools to analyze transaction and deposit data. Through the use of these tools, fintech supplier firms reliably recognize potential BSA/AML violations or suspicious activities far better than previous analogue efforts. In turn, those community banks that originally sought to digitalize their enterprise or operational efforts in the BSA/AML space are now operating in a significantly improved manner from a regulatory compliance and safety and soundness perspective.

c. Digitalization of Community Bank Offerings Can Increase Access to Financial Services for Historically Underserved Consumers

Through academic, industry, and government research, digitalization generally, and bank-fintech partnerships specifically, have been empirically shown to improve financial inclusion through improved services to historically underserved communities.  As an agency, through efforts such as Project REACh and its Technology Workstream, it is clear that OCC is well-aware of how digitalization can help ensure much needed financial products and services reach communities that have been historically underserved.

In practice, innovations from fintech companies that have been incorporated into community banks digitalization efforts have provided responsible alternatives to high-cost options for consumers in these communities; thus, improving the overall financial health of these consumers.  Instead of being forced to engage with payday lenders and check cashers, consumers have gained access to responsible term loans and high-yield demand deposit accounts. Specifically, the deposits brought into financial institutions via their partnerships with fintech companies have proved to be stable and beneficial for both the consumers and the financial institution. These products and services are a direct response to consumer demand, and their impact is most acute for those consumers historically underserved by traditional financial services participants.

Further, digitalization efforts related to consumers categorized as “near prime” consumers have proven uniquely beneficial for expanding the offerings of community banks to these consumers who critically need access to capital. For example, credit offerings, including credit builder products, credit cards, and term-loans, offered through the innovative, digital channels born out of the bank-fintech partnership model are able to serve an expanded consumer market making these products and services more economically viable and available to consumers. In today’s world, it is nearly impossible to function without a credit card, to either make purchases online, or offline, particularly with a trend toward cashless payments. Through responsible bank-fintech partnerships, near prime consumers are able to gain access to credit and build their financial lives.

II. Community Bank Digitalization Activities

Innovative community banks, who make up a significant portion of AFC’s membership, have pursued various digitalization efforts. Throughout all of these efforts, there has been a focus on ensuring that digitalization is done the correct way. Due to these member efforts, AFC has understood specific leading practices in areas such as risk management, AI, and data management that increase the probability of a successful digital transformation by a community bank.

a. Leading Practices in Community Bank Culture and Risk Management for Successful Digitalization

As noted above, ensuring stakeholder buy-in throughout the community bank is crucial to the success of a bank’s digitalization efforts. We have seen that those community banks that focus on building a digital-first, innovation-driven culture are best positioned to pursue digitalization strategies effectively. As part of that culture, prudent risk management processes that understand the nuances of the bank’s digital needs and potential digital solutions are crucial to ensuring community banks’ digitalization efforts are successful. Within each of the aforementioned “build, buy, or partner” options, community banks must engage with all relevant stakeholders and conduct significant due diligence when developing and implementing their digitalization strategies.

AFC previously detailed leading practices for risk management of bank-fintech partnerships.  These perspectives generally apply to all digitalization efforts, including those pursued by community banks. However, it is worth reiterating the core features of the leading practices we previously identified. Specifically, as community banks digitalize, their risk management practices should include suitability assessments; holistic quantitative and qualitative risk assessments; targeted secondary risk assessments; ongoing governance and monitoring; and contingency planning. By conducting these activities, in conjunction with an overarching culture focused on digitalization and stakeholder buy-in, community banks will be able to mitigate many of the potential risks associated with digitalizing their offerings and operations.

b. Leading Processes and Practices for AI

AI within financial services is another major innovation that has gained significant regulatory discussion over the past several years. While the methodologies underlying AI technologies have been used in financial services in some form since the 1980s, technological advances both directly and indirectly related to AI have greatly increased the potential use cases and more recent implementation of products and services that leverage the technology in financial services. Federal and state governments have recognized the potential for AI tools in financial services. Further, both federal and state legislatures have introduced, and in some cases passed legislation related to AI. As discussed below, AFC and its members have identified leading practices for managing risks associated with AI in financial services. Moreover, AI is not a monolithic concept; in particular, though generative AI receives much of the press, there are many use cases. Thus, AFC advocates, as it has done in the past, for policies under a risk-based framework that recognize the context-specific nature of a given use case for the AI technology.

In response to the market and non-market forces surrounding the use of AI in financial services innovative banks and fintech companies, including AFC members, developed processes and practices for understanding and mitigating risks posed by the use of AI tools. AFC member companies developed robust practices for the development and use of AI tools in their products and services. Responsible financial institutions, including community banks, and fintech companies do not view AI tools as a supplement for their compliance, product, or other staff. Instead, these companies see AI tools as providing an opportunity to safely and responsibly complement the staff activities already being conducted and to develop more efficient and effective products and services. Thus, AFC members established AI-specific risk management frameworks that seek to mitigate general risks associated with AI technologies, as well as those that might be associated with a specific use case.

AFC agrees with this pragmatic approach to managing risks associated with AI technologies to ensure their responsible deployment in financial services. Ensuring the proper development of “gates” within the development and deployment of AI technologies is a prudent process that AFC members already institute, and both financial institutions and fintech companies across the industry who are using or considering AI technologies should implement. While AFC recognizes that community banks seeking to use AI as part of their digitalization strategy hold significant liability for issues that may result from the use of AI tools, AFC believes that a “shared responsibility model” between both the community bank and the fintech company is crucial for ensuring the proper operations, maintenance, and security of AI technologies.

In practice, these efforts ensure that both financial institutions and fintech companies do not allow AI tools to develop beyond the knowledge and capabilities of employees who are using these tools. Specifically, AFC members have established robust risk management practices specifically designed for the nuances and complexities associated with the use of AI. AFC believes that this approach towards managing risks associated with AI is a leading practice for the financial services industry. Consequently, those financial institutions and fintech companies operating in a responsible bank-fintech partnership should collectively engage in the development of these risk management practices throughout the partnership to ensure that the deployment of AI tools does not present an undue risk to consumers, the partnership, or the financial services industry.

AFC strongly advocates for the development of policies that recognize the context specific nature of AI and provides the ability for innovative financial institutions and fintech companies to use AI as a tool to improve the products and services offered for the benefit of consumers. We believe that it is essential to foster responsible innovation and competition in the use of AI, and in doing so, regulatory bodies should review and modernize their regulatory frameworks to provide clear guidance, particularly by promoting a risk-based approach to regulation, and ultimately by ensuring that guidelines are specific enough to address the complexities of AI systems while being flexible enough to accommodate diverse applications.

c. Leading Processes and Practices for Data Management and Transfers

One such area where AFC members have identified leading practices is in the area of data management and transfers. Effectively managing and efficiently transferring data between partnered entities is crucial to community banks as they digitalize, especially those that pursue responsible bank-fintech partnership. Within digitalization efforts, both community banks and fintech companies establish robust practices in accordance with leading cybersecurity practices established by the leading standard setting and expert groups, including the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), International Organization for Standardization (ISO), and the G7 Cyber Experts Group. Implementing these leading standards and practices ensures that both financial institutions and fintech companies are able to effectively maintain the safety and security of their consumers’ sensitive data and adhere to existing laws and regulations related to data management and data transfers.

Further, as federal and state regulations have developed on issues of personal financial data rights, AFC and its members have proactively engaged in efforts to ensure that consumers are in control of their data and able to select the entities with whom they share their data.  AFC has consistently advocated for an open banking system that ensures consumers’ rights and fosters robust competition in the financial services industry.  This advocacy has included recommending that industry participants avoid riskier data practices, such as “screen scraping” in favor of costlier, but safer alternatives, such as the development of application program interfaces (APIs) and the data encryption efforts. AFC also recognizes the importance of leveraging APIs in data transfers between partners in a bank-fintech partnership. For example, to improve the safety and efficiency of data transfers, financial institutions should develop APIs that allow fintech companies to transmit real-time data. This data can then be housed by the financial institution but made available in accordance with the CFPB’s final rule on Personal Financial Data Rights.  To this end, AFC members have proactively pursued these safer data practices to ensure that consumers’ data remains safe and secure in the forthcoming open banking ecosystem.

III. Challenges Community Banks Face in Response to Their Digitalization Efforts and Opportunities The OCC Can Pursue to Encourage Further Digitalization

The decision on how a community bank pursues digitalization requires robust internal discussions, careful consideration of the opportunities and risks, and the strategic deployment of capital. The path to successful digitalization may experience a number of market and non-market challenges prior to, during, and after a community bank has decided to pursue digitalization efforts. AFC previously discussed many of the challenges that banks pursuing digitalization through bank-fintech partnerships experienced and activities that federal prudential regulators can take to mitigate these challenges, as well as encourage responsible innovation.  While the analysis and recommendations of our previous advocacy remain true as it relates to community banks, there are several challenges—in addition to the cost challenge noted earlier—that necessitate reiteration. Namely, unclear or complex regulatory requirements and significant variation within examiner education on digital offerings, and a lack implementation regarding supervisory technology tools. Mitigating these challenges would be uniquely beneficial to community banks pursuing digitalization efforts, because it would

• reduce costs and avoid the need for these community banks to deploy limited capital;

• streamline digitalization efforts and allow for more effective engagement with fintech companies and prudential regulators.

In turn, mitigating the aforementioned challenges would result in increased ability for community banks to pursue digitalization strategies and ensure the continued existence of the robust community banking space.

a. Providing Regulatory Clarity on Outdated Regulations and Guidance that Impact Digital Offerings by Community Banks

As noted above, AFC consistently advocates for clear and consistent “rules of the road” for community banks to use when developing innovative products and services or engaging in digitalization efforts. Many of the existing laws and regulations governing the financial services industry were promulgated prior to the development of the latest wave of digitalization in the financial services industry. As such, these regulations may have requirements that are ill-suited to community banks seeking to digitalize their offerings. Further, compliance with these regulations is far from a costless endeavor. In fact, significant capital from community banks often must be deployed to hire subject-matter experts and employ teams of compliance and legal staff to ensure that the community bank does not run afoul of regulations that have grey areas with regard to certain digitalization efforts. Given the importance of deploying capital strategically, particularly within community banks, these additional costs associated with interpreting and complying with outdated regulations and requirements may limit community banks’ abilities to engage in customer-facing, revenue-generating digitalization efforts. Therefore, it is incumbent upon the OCC to review existing regulations and, where necessary, pursue new rulemakings or provide additional guidance to community banks pursuing digitalization efforts.

AFC recognizes the importance and benefit of the previously issued interagency guidance on third-party risk management. However, now that this higher-level framework has been established, AFC believes that the OCC and its fellow prudential regulators should pursue the issuance of relevant rulemakings and additional activity-specific guidance that assist with the products and services offered by innovative, digital-first community banks. AFC believes that there are many areas that could benefit from additional guidance that is tailored to various ways community banks have chosen to digitalize their business models, products, and services. For example, the reengagement of the “True Lender” rulemaking, agency guidance related to fintech lending operations—akin to the inactive FDIC Financial Institution Letter FIL-50-2016—deposit rule classifications, and open banking standards for business accounts are several areas where the OCC could greatly improve industry understanding of supervisors’ expectations through improved regulatory clarity.

b. Improved Examiner Education on Digitalization Efforts at Community Banks

Through AFC’s membership and discussions across the industry, we have learned that examiner knowledge and understanding of digitalization efforts conducted by community banks—particularly regarding the pursuit of bank-fintech partnership models—as well as the innovative products and services offered through them varies substantially. Both federal and state examiners are crucial to ensuring a safe and sound financial services industry that serves consumers effectively. However, due to the varied understanding of digitalization efforts and the risks associated with them, AFC believes that significant education and reform efforts are needed. While many examination staff work diligently to understand the nuances associated with bank-fintech models, at worst, we have heard that examination staff fundamentally misunderstand the risks associated with digitalization efforts, including bank-fintech partnerships, and therefore misapply the risk-based examination framework in their examinations. Further, we have heard that these examiners pursue unproductive lines of inquiry into the activities of the financial institution that are akin to “fishing expeditions” and result in high time and monetary costs to the financial institution.

AFC recognizes and appreciates the efforts to improve the examination of community banks’ digitalization efforts pursued by the OCC through the establishment of the Office of Financial Technology. Given the continued growth of digital-first offerings and the growth of bank-fintech partnerships, it is incumbent upon the OCC to ensure that they are dedicating adequate funding to the staffing and development of programs designed to examine these efforts, such as OCC’s Office of Financial Technology.

While it is crucial that agencies support the continued development of the subject matter experts found in the Office of Financial Technology, AFC believes that it is equally important to ensure that all examiners at the OCC have the requisite knowledge to engage effectively with financial institutions under their jurisdictions who are engaged in digitalization efforts. Specifically regarding examinations, while Office of Financial Technology staff have been helpful in assisting examination teams understand the nuances associated with bank-fintech partnerships, there is no substitute for the continued development of the examination teams tasked with overseeing a given innovative financial institution. To ensure that OCC meets its aforementioned priority, it is crucial that the OCC’s frontline examination staff have the requisite education to effectively engage with financial institutions pursuing bank-fintech partnerships.

The frontline examination staff who consistently engage with community banks, including those engaged in bank-fintech partnerships, typically have the best understanding of the operations, activities, and procedures of that financial institution within the supervision division of the OCC. However, these staff may not have the contextual sophistication necessary to make critical determinations of actual risks associated with a given partnership. Again, the subject matter experts within the Office of Financial Technology assist in bridging the gap for the frontline examination staff. However, it remains critical that these frontline examination staff have the requisite understanding of bank-fintech models in aggregate to make prudent determinations within the examination.

With the above detailed perspectives in mind, we respectfully recommend that the OCC pursue significant education efforts for their examination staff specifically designed to educate these staff on the various types of bank-fintech models, activities conducted within the models, and leading risk management processes. Specifically, with the assistance of private sector entities, AFC believes that the agency should develop and implement additional training programs related to the digitalization of community banks to understand these efforts and the actual risk profiles associated with them.

c. Using Supervisory Technology in Examinations

Through the adoption of regulatory technology or “regtech” tools, innovative financial institutions and fintech companies, including community banks, sought to improve their internal and external regulatory processes. Regtech tools have been used to improve fraud detection practices, KYC activities, and regulatory reporting, among other activities. Financial institutions leverage the aforementioned fintech supplier partnerships to build these improved processes, resulting in significant cost savings and efficiencies.  

While these regtech tools have proved beneficial for financial institutions and fintech companies, there are also significant opportunities the Joint Agencies to identify and implement supervisory technology or “suptech” tools to improve oversight and examination processes. Globally, suptech tools have been a key area of potential innovation for regulators. Both academic institutions, such as the University of Cambridge via its Suptech Lab, and international organizations such as the International Monetary Fund and the Bank for International Settlements have recognized the importance of improving regulatory activities through the use of suptech tools.  

According to the Bank for International Settlement’s Financial Stability Institute, when pursued with a distinct strategy by an agency, suptech tools have been extremely helpful for improving supervision of regulated entities within a number of jurisdictions.  Specifically, the report found that suptech tools have improved efficiencies in their regulatory engagements. Further, the report noted that “[s]ome suptech tools are now critical to supervisory processes “[s]uptech tools should have a natural place in supervisory processes and address specific pain points”.  

Given the preponderance of evidence regarding the importance of suptech tools, AFC believes that it is imperative that the OCC follow their international counterparts and engage in a concerted manner to adopt suptech tools. Therefore, AFC respectfully recommends that the OCC identify and implement relevant suptech tools to improve their oversight activities of regulated entities. By implementing suptech tools, AFC believes that examiners can more efficiently and effectively examine regulated entities and lower the costs associated with an examination for both the agency and the regulated entity.

* * *

AFC appreciates the opportunity to comment on the OCC’s Request for Information Regarding Community Bank Digitalization. We welcome continued engagement with the OCC on how to implement regulations, guidance, and programs that encourage the digitalization of community banks. Thank you for your consideration of our views in this matter.

Sincerely,

Ian P. Moloney
SVP, Head of Policy and Regulatory Affairs
American Fintech Council

[1]American Fintech Council’s (AFC) membership spans EWA providers, lenders, banks, payments providers, loan servicers, credit bureaus, and personal financial management companies.
[2]  Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, Congressional Budget Justification and Annual Performance Plan and Report FY 2025, available at https://home.treasury.gov/system/files/266/21.-OCC-FY-2025-CJ.pdf.
[3]Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, Congressional Budget Justification FY 2026, available at https://home.treasury.gov/system/files/266/20.-OCC-FY-2026-CJ.pdf,  Page 4.
[4]Bank-Fintech Arrangements RFI.
[5]U.S. Department of the Treasury, A Financial System That Creates Economic Opportunities: Nonbank Financials, Fintech, and Innovation, (July 2018), available at https://home.treasury.gov/sites/default/files/2018-08/A-Financial-System-that-Creates-Economic-Opportunities---Nonbank-Financials-Fintech-and-Innovation_0.pdf.
[6]U.S. Government Accountability Office, Financial Technology: Additional Steps by Regulators Could Better Protect Consumers and Aid Regulatory Oversight, GAO-18-254, (Mar. 22, 2018), available at https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-18-254; and U.S. Government Accountability Office, Financial Technology: Products Have Benefits and Risks to Underserved Consumers, and Regulatory Clarity Is Needed, GAO-23-105536, (Mar. 08, 2023), available at https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-23-105536.
[7]Fitch Ratings, “Nonr-Rating Action Commentary: U.S. Community Banks; Competition and Tech Evolution Will Continue to Drive Consolidation”, (Jan. 25, 2024) available at https://www.fitchratings.com/research/banks/us-community-banks-competition-tech-evolution-will-continue-to-drive-consolidation-25-01-2024#:~:text=U.S.%20Community%20Banks;%20Competition%20and%20Tech%20Evolution%20Will%20Continue%20to%20Drive%20Consolidation.
[8]Propson, Drew, Emina Ajvazoska, Felipe Ferri de Camargo Paes, Stanley Mutinda, Dana Salman, Jill Lagos Shemin, Krishnamurthy Suresh, et al., The Future of Global Fintech: Towards Resilient and Inclusive Growth, (Jan. 2024), available at https://www.jbs.cam.ac.uk/faculty-research/centres/alternative-finance/publications/the-future-of-global-fintech-towards-resilient-and-inclusive-growth/.
[9[American Fintech Council, "Federal: Advocacy Letter on Interagency Bank-Fintech Arrangements RFI," October 30, 2024, available at https://www.fintechcouncil.org/advocacy/federal-advocacy-letter-on-interagency-bank-fintech-arrangements-rfi
[10]Chernoff, Alan and Julapa Jagtiani, The Role of Bank-Fintech Partnerships in Creating a More Inclusive Banking System, WP 23-21, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, (Oct. 2023) available at https://www.philadelphiafed.org/the-economy/banking-and-financial-markets/the-role-of-bank-fintech-partnerships-in-creating-a-more-inclusive-banking-system; Dolson, Erik and Julapa Jagtiani, Which Lenders Are More Likely to Reach Out to Underserved Consumers: Banks versus Fintechs versus Other Nonbanks?, WP 21-17, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, (Apr. 2021), available at https://www.philadelphiafed.org/consumer-finance/which-lenders-are-more-likely-to-reach-out-to-underserved-consumers; Lung, Harrison, Why financial inclusion is the key to a thriving digital economy, World Economic Forum, (Jul. 29, 2024), available at https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2024/07/why-financial-inclusion-is-the-key-to-a-thriving-digital-economy/; and Salman, Sabry, The role of banks in FinTech partnerships, Barclays Investment Bank, (Sep. 18, 2023) available at https://www.ib.barclays/our-insights/3-point-perspective/the-role-of-banks-in-fintech-partnerships.html.
[11]Dunn, Andrew and Nadia Van De Walle, Fintech as a Solution for Employee Financial Health Findings from Five: Exploratory Studies, Financial Health Network, (Mar. 2023), available at https://cfsi-innovation-files-2018.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/23024025/FSL_IE-Report-WashU-Final.pdf; Cornelli, Giulio, Jon Frost, Leonardo Gambacorta, and Julapa Jagtiani, The Impact of Fintech Lending on Credit Access for U.S. Small Businesses, WP 22-14, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, (Apr. 2022), available at https://www.philadelphiafed.org/the-economy/banking-and-financial-markets/the-impact-of-fintech-lending-on-credit-access-for-us-small-businesses; and Dunn, Andrew and Heidi Johnson, Building Consumer Savings with Fintech Innovations: Savings are a critical component of financial health, and new approaches can encourage consumer savings, Financial Health Network, (Jul. 2022) available at https://finhealthnetwork.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Building-Consumer-Savings-with-Fintech-Innovations-2022.pdf.
[12]Ibid, AFC Comment to Bank-Fintech Arrangements RFI.
[13]American Fintech Council, “Comments Regarding Request for Information on Uses, Opportunities, and Risks of Artificial Intelligence in the Financial Services Sector”, (Aug. 12, 2024), available at https://www.fintechcouncil.org/advocacy/federal-ai-letter; and American Fintech Council, “Statement from American Fintech Council (AFC) Senior Vice President, Head of Policy and Regulatory Affairs, Ian P. Moloney, on the Department of the Treasury’s Approach to Artificial Intelligence”, Sep. 25, 2024, https://www.fintechcouncil.org/press-releases/statement-from-american-fintech-council-afc-senior-vice-president-head-of-policy-and-regulatory-affairs-ian-p-moloney-on-the-department-of-the-treasurys-approach-to-artificial-intelligence.  
[14] Ibid.
[15]See, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, “Required Rulemaking on Personal Financial Data Rights”, Last accessed Oct. 23, 2024, available at https://www.consumerfinance.gov/personal-financial-data-rights/.
[16] See, American Fintech Council, “Comments Regarding Proposed Required Rulemaking on Personal Financial Data Rights CFPB-2023-0052”, (Dec. 29, 2023), available at https://www.fintechcouncil.org/advocacy/comment-letter-responding-to-the-proposed-required-rulemaking-on-personal-financial-data-rights-implementing-section-1033; and American Fintech Council, “Statement from American Fintech Council (AFC) Senior Vice President, Head of Policy and Regulatory Affairs, Ian P. Moloney, on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s Personal Financial Data Rights Final Rule”, Oct. 22, 2024, https://www.fintechcouncil.org/press-releases/statement-from-american-fintech-council-afc-senior-vice-president-head-of-policy-and-regulatory-affairs-ian-p-moloney-on-the-consumer-financial-protection-bureaus-personal-financial-data-rights-final-rule.
[17]See, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, “Required Rulemaking on Personal Financial Data Rights”, Final Rule, (Oct. 22, 2024), available at https://files.consumerfinance.gov/f/documents/cfpb_personal-financial-data-rights-final-rule_2024-10.pdf. At the time of submission for this comment letter, the CFPB’s final rule had been issued but not yet published in the Federal Register.
[18] Ibid, AFC Comment to Bank-Fintech Arrangements RFI.
[19]Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, “National Banks and Federal Savings Associations as Lenders”, Fed. Reg. 85, No. 211 (Oct. 30, 2020): 68742; and Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, FIl-50-2016, “Examination Guidance for Third-Party Lending” (July 29, 2016). OCC’s “True Lender” rulemaking was subsequently invalidated through Congressional Review Act procedures. FDIC’s proposed examination guidance was not finalized.
[20] See, the University of Cambridge’s Cambridge Suptech Lab, https://lab.ccaf.io/; BIS Innovation Hub, “BIS Innovation Hub expands suptech and regtech research to include monetary policy tech”, Last updated Mar. 21, 2024,
https://www.bis.org/about/bisih/topics/suptech_regtech.htm; and Tobias Adrian, Financial Counsellor and Direct, Money and Capital Markets Department, IMF,  “AI and Regtech”, Speech, Virtual Workshop on AI & Finance, Oct. 29, 2021, available at https://www.imf.org/en/News/Articles/2021/10/29/sp102921-ai-and-regtech.
[21]Prenio, Jermy, Peering through the hype - assessing suptech tools' transition from experimentation to supervision, Bank for International Settlements, FSI Insights No. 58, (Jun. 14, 2024), available at https://www.bis.org/fsi/publ/insights58.pdf.
[22]Ibid, Pages 14-15.