The following news was published about the remarks of IMF Managing Director Lagarde at the Fukuoka G20 seminar yesterday.
As I was listening to her remarks directly at a venue in Fukuoka, I felt a little uncomfortable with this news because she evaluated FinTech more positively.
You can read the full text of Lagarde’s remarks “The Next Steps for International Cooperation in Fintech” on the IMF’s site, so I hope that you can read it and see if the article has a point.
Indeed, Lagarde pointed out that “A significant disruption to the financial landscape is likely to come from the big tech firms.” However, I think that this “disruption” refers to the competition between old finance and new finance that is already occurring all over the world and that traditional financial regulations do not reach new finance. It does not warn that GAFA will trigger a financial crisis.
Lagarde, on the other hand, also mentioned: “Integrating different national approaches to crypto-assets, non-bank fintech intermediaries, and the governance of data is crucial if we are to harness the potential to promote potential greater financial inclusion and development.”
And she quoted the Japanese proverb “Walk across the stone bridge only after you have tested its strength.” And she concludes, “We will cross the bridge, together, into the fintech future. But we will only do so once we are confident that bridge is safe and secure.” However, I think the audience also understood that we need to cross the bridge in the future.
The question is if we will succeed in “Integrating different national approaches to crypto-assets, non-bank fintech intermediates, and the governance of data” before things progress. I think that Lagarde intended to inspire the coordination of financial authorities of G20 countries for that purpose.