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The COVID-19 outbreak has a growing impact on the global economy and the financial sector, which plays a critical role in mitigating the unprecedented macroeconomic and financial shock caused by the pandemic. Given the unprecedented nature of the current crisis, financial regulators and supervisors, central banks, along with governments and legislatures face challenges to maintain financial stability, preserve the well-functioning core markets, and ensure the flow of credit to the real economy. Even though the COVID-19 has slowed down our daily lives and stopped the operation of many industries, it did not have the same effect in the data-driven finance world. The digital transformation of the financial services industry and financial technologies (fintech) have contributed to face some of the challenges of the pandemic. This paper explains the ongoing data revolution in the financial services industry and how traditional financial institutions and fintechs are trying to leverage data-driven solutions to respond to the challenges associated with the economic crisis derived from the pandemic. The paper also argues that despite the potential benefits of this transformation, the future of data-driven finance in a post-pandemic world looks challenging and generates many risks for consumers and the stability of the financial sector that regulators need to address. An adequate balance of different regulatory objectives will be crucial for a sustainable recovery in a post-pandemic financial industry.

Data has taken immense importance in the last years. Consider the amount of data that is being collected worldwide every day, industries are reshaping their activities into a data-driven business. The digital transformation of all industries, portent of the fourth industrial revolution, is creating a new kind of economy based on the datafication of almost any aspect of human social, political and economic activity as a result of the information generated by the numerous daily routines of digitally connected individuals and technology. The financial services industry is part of this trend. Embracing the digital revolution and creating the right foundations allow incumbent financial institutions to disrupt their own business model. Hence, financial institutions are creating new businesses within their existing structures that adapt and collaborate to meet the challenges of digital transformation and make better use, faster, of their enduring source of competitive advantage – their own customer insight. Open banking and banking as a service (BaaS) are emerging as new forms of intermediation in the financial system that portraits positive and negative externalities for the financial system. Both concepts – open banking and BaaS – refer to the use of open Application Programming Interfaces that enable third parties to build applications and services around a financial institution that exposes its data and/or its infrastructure. The use of these schemes represents a new form of intersection between data and finance, which is changing the way traditional products, services and customer experience traditionally work in the financial sector. This paper explains the open banking and BaaS foundations and what they exactly entail. It also explores the benefits and risks that this interaction between financial institutions and third parties portrait for the financial services industry and analyses from a comparative perspective the different approaches financial, data privacy and competition regulators have implemented to boost open banking phenom. This paper argues that the compulsory approach to open banking is not in all cases the best approach for capitalizing the benefits of open banking and managing its risks. Indeed, some regulators have proposed a compulsory approach to open banking regulations to increase competition in retail banking or in the payment systems. In opposition, this paper argues that open banking and BaaS models in the financial industry might lead to more concentration and these risks have been understated by financial regulators and competition authorities. Finally, we provide some policy recommendations regarding open banking regulations, such as: the same regulatory approach should not apply to all jurisdictions, regulators should encourage reciprocity, especially when choosing the compulsory approach, coordination among different regulatory authorities is needed on a national and international levels, risk-based regulation is a correct type of approach, and monetization of data should not be restricted for incumbents.

As the COVID-19 health pandemic ebbs and flows world-wide, governments and private companies across the globe are utilising AI-assisted surveillance, reporting, mapping and tracing technologies with the intention of slowing the spread of the virus. These technologies have capacity to amass and share personal data for community control and citizen safety motivations that empower state agencies and inveigle citizen co-operation which could only be imagined outside times of real and present personal danger. While not cavilling with the short-term necessity for these technologies and the data they control, process and share in the health regulation mission (provided that the technology can be shown to be fit for purpose), the paper argues that this technological infrastructure for surveillance can have serious ethical and regulatory implications in the medium and long term when reflected against human dignity, civil liberties, transparency, data aggregation, explainability and other governance fundamentals. The paper commences with the case for regulation recognising crisis exigencies, after which it reiterates personal data challenges, then surveys policy and regulatory options to equitably address these challenges.

The rise of new technologies has changed the operation, regulation and supervision of financial markets, bringing new challenges and opportunities for consumers, regulators, and financial institutions. This Article seeks to explore the most common regulatory strategies used by financial regulators around the world to address the challenges associated with the rise of fintech. These strategies include the imposition of bans, regulatory passivity, adoption of new legislation, permission on a case by case basis, and more interactive approaches such as innovation offices, accelerators and sandboxes. This Article argues that the adoption and desirability of each regulatory approach will depend on a variety of country-specific factors, including the goals and priorities of the regulator and the particular features of a country. Thefore, there are no one-size-fits-all solutions that can be suggested to promote financial innovation and effectively address the challenges generated by the rise of new technologies in the financial services industry.