现行条例已经过时，不适合监管金融科技公司

在今年6月举办的《财富》头脑风暴金融大会上，我的讨论组被问到了一个问题：金融科技这个行业究竟是监管过度还是监管不足？根据各自的产品，讨论组专家们给出的回答不一，却体现出了一大共性：看情况而定。

金融科技公司面对大量金融监管条例，在合规问题上要付出高昂代价，而这些监管针对的主要是我们不做的事情。与许多科技驱动的行业一样，我们的监管条例严重不合时宜，它起草于应用还相当于一桌大餐中的炸薯条、垃圾邮件只是肉罐头的年代。想象一下，法规出台时，你的行业或产品根本还不存在，而你却要在它的管理下经营公司。这就是大部分金融科技公司的现状。“银行”是什么，发挥什么作用？国会对监管者的这类指导还停留在20世纪70年代的银行业水平。

我们接触的监管者和立法者经常和我们说：“我们知道这些法律过时了，需要废弃和改写，但这个工程太大、太难，需要投入太多的工作。”在某种程度上，他们没有说错。银行的董事会成员和联邦监管者无法把握变化的范围或跟上变化的节奏，也可能只是在坚持把每家公司都看作一家银行，每笔贷款都看作30年的抵押贷款。

银行其实已经不再作为一个机构而存在了。消费者行为还在，金融服务还在——它们属于一个复杂而不断变化的问题与解决方案网络中的一部分。

为了跟上变革的步伐，英国采用了一种全新的方法，这值得美国借鉴研究。英国监管的是服务——也就是企业真正在做的事情。不同的执照和标准管理着向购房者或小型企业提供的借贷。银行之间的处理付款不会带来类似存款的风险，所以在英国，风险敏感型的监管对此较为放松。

放弃实体银行或中产阶级抵押贷款等一刀切式的金融关系模型，有助于推广定制化、专业化，重新塑造消费者与企业的关系。将Pandora和Spotify看作20世纪70年代唱片公司或广播站的过时监管条例，最终导致了全方位的版权变革。消费者对金融服务的期待，其变化幅度丝毫不逊于他们对音乐行业的期待。变革早就应该出现了。

位于加利福尼亚州、在发展中国家开展小额信贷业务的公司Tala利用手机使用习惯来判定用户信誉。如果一个潜在借款人定期充值通话时间，有着相识多年的广泛关系网并保持联系，还定期支付其他订单，那么他为了进货水果而借款50美元贷款或购买摩托车而借款250美元，偿还的概率就会很高。而同样，对于金融科技模型的预测有所帮助的数据类型或来源，潜在借款人或许愿意共享，也有可能不愿意。

现代监管条例应该允许消费者决定谁有权访问他们的数据，选择对保险、投资、处理付款或存款等某项特定服务的共享内容。这是走向透明和创新的途径。

直到最近，消费者还无权获知自己的信用数据，而银行却在用它们来决定借款人在金融上的未来。具有远见的监管条例让消费者有权看到这些记录，挑战它们的准确性，尽管这会遭遇数据持有方的阻力。我们出台的规定要让消费者控制自己的金融数据和银行服务，不是把这项权力交给银行，这点当然至关重要。

但是我们也不能走向极端。在庞大统一的监管框架下，消费者日益期待的充满活力、选择广泛、形态各异的产品难有容身之地，无论是摇滚乐还是小型商业贷款都是如此。让广播站记录你昨天听到深夜的歌曲，在当年听上去十分荒谬。但如今，人们已经爱上了由收集这类数据的公司所提供的定制体验和精选推荐。

无论银行和监管方是否做好了准备，银行业都在飞速地发生变化。几乎没有哪个千禧一代愿意走进一家银行支行，并与出纳员进行对话——“银行业”对他们而言并不意味着这些。如果你不打算购置房产、生育小孩、上大学或直接用支票存款，贝宝（PayPal）就是你唯一需要的银行。

如果你想要其他服务，也总有一家银行可以实现。请让人们选择他们想要的世界，而不是强迫他们走进一个更适合过去的世界。（财富中文网）

凯瑟琳·佩特里亚是Kabbage的联合创始人及总裁。

译者：严匡正

During Fortune’s Brainstorm Finance conference in June, my panel was asked whether fintech, as an industry, faces too much or too little regulation. Panelists answered the question differently depending on their product and a common theme emerged: It depends.

Fintech companies face costly compliance with a mountain of financial regulations, most of which describe work we don’t do. Like many technology-driven industries, our regulations are horribly outdated, authored at a time when an app meant fries for the whole table, and spam was just canned meat. Imagine running a business under laws written before your industry or product ever existed. That’s the reality for most fintechs. Congress’s directions for regulators about what “banks” are and do are based on how banking worked in the 1970s.

Regulators and lawmakers we meet with regularly tell us: “We know the laws are outdated and need to be scrapped and rewritten, but it’s just too big, too hard, and too much work.” To some extent, they’re right. Bank board members and federal regulators can’t grasp the scope or pace of change, or possibly keep up if they insist on treating every company like a bank and every loan like a 30-year mortgage.

Banks, as institutions, don’t really exist anymore. Customer activities exist and financial services exist—and they’re part of a complex and perpetually shifting network of problems and solutions.

To keep up, the U.K. takes a novel approach that America should examine. The U.K. regulates services—what businesses actually do. Separate licenses and standards govern lending to home buyers or small businesses. Processing payments between banks doesn’t pose the same risk as deposits, so risk-sensitive regulations in the U.K. are relaxed.

Giving up the one-size-fits-all model of financial relationships, such as the brick-and-mortar bank or middle-class mortgage, opens the door to customization, specialization, and reimagining customer-business relationships. Dated regulations treating Pandora and Spotify like 1970s record labels or radio stations led to a total copyright overhaul. Customers’ expectations have changed every bit as much for financial services as for the music industry. Change is overdue.

Tala, a California-based company offering microloans in developing countries, is using mobile phone habits to determine creditworthiness. If a potential borrower tops up his minutes at regular intervals, has a wide network of contacts who he’s known for years and stays in contact with, and pays his other bills regularly, he’s very likely to repay the loan of $50 to stock his fruit stand or $250 for a motorbike. Similarly, for any type or source of data fintech models find predictive, the would-be borrower may consent to share, or not.

Modern regulation should allow the customer to determine who has access to their data, choosing what to share or not to share for a certain service, including underwriting, investing, processing payments, and deposits. This is the path toward transparency and innovation.

Until recently, customers weren’t entitled to access their credit bureau data, which banks were using to make decisions about borrowers’ financial futures. Forward-thinking regulation gave customers the right to see these records and challenge their accuracy, despite resistance from the data holders. It’s certainly important that we develop regulations to give customers control of their financial data and banking services, instead of the banks.

But we can’t take this too far. Monolithic regulatory frameworks don’t allow for the dynamic, interwoven range of options and diversified offerings customers have come to expect, whether they’re rock songs or small business loans. Letting radio stations log what songs you listen to late at night might have seemed absurd back in the day, but now people love the custom experience and curated suggestions provided by companies collecting that data.

Banking is changing fast, whether banks and regulators are ready or not. Very few millennials value walking into a bank branch and speaking to a teller—that’s not what “banking” means to them. If you don’t intend to buy a home, have a child, go to college, or directly deposit a paycheck, PayPal’s the only bank you need.

If you want something else, there’s a company out there that can do it. Let people opt into the world they want, instead of forcing them into the one that was easier yesterday.

Kathryn Petralia is the co-founder and president of Kabbage.