The mission of “DFS Exchange” is to foster the growth of responsible innovation in financial services in New York. 

DFS Exchange is an opportunity for financial innovators and stakeholders engaged in consumer-facing, market-facing or supervisory-related tools, technologies, research, or emerging trends to meet with the New York Department of Financial Services.  Through these sessions, we hope to learn about emerging products, services, business lines and/or practices, and technologies to accelerate the financial industry; their promise for New Yorkers and the New York economy; and their potential regulatory needs, merits, and challenges.

Sessions will be held either virtually or in-person at NYDFS’s New York City offices and are open to all entities, including, but not limited to, financial institutions, non-bank institutions, firms, and technology companies, and consumer advocacy organizations or nonprofits. If you are interested in participating, please complete the form below.

For a full list of institutions and individuals that we supervise, please see here.

Our Goals

The two, equally valued goals of DFS Exchange are to help DFS staff stay abreast of innovations in the financial services industry, and to surface policy-oriented or practical challenges or limitations of our current regulatory frameworks.

In addition to these two overarching goals, we also hope to:

• Ensure that financial services entrepreneurs and innovators experience DFS as a transparent, innovation-friendly regulator
• Improve consumer access to needed services, spur competition in financial services, and promote financial inclusion

Engage With Us

If you are interested in meeting with DFS subject matter experts in exploratory  sessions to introduce yourself and/or your company, product, issue, or service, please complete and submit the interest form below. Meetings, either virtual or in-person, are intended to be informational in nature and allow innovators to engage informally with expert DFS staff.

Complete the Interest Form

NOTE: The information you submit to DFS may be subject to public disclosure, such as through the Freedom of Information Law. Please do not submit any sensitive or confidential information. While submission of a form does not guarantee that a meeting with DFS will be scheduled, the information submitted will help us make this program as useful as possible.

DFS regularly works to raise awareness of our regulatory positions, provide support to industry professionals and entities, and discuss emerging trends in the sector.

DFS Exchange: A Conversation with Regulators and Industry Leaders on Financial Innovation and Digital-First Regulation on June 30, 2022

Please join us to celebrate the launch of DFS Exchange, an engagement platform to foster the growth of responsible innovation in financial services in New York. Hear from DFS staff, industry experts, regulators, and entrepreneurs about the complementary forces of regulation and innovation in New York, and how the state is embracing a digital-first approach to regulatory oversight.  During the conversation, we will dive deeper into the importance of analytics and stakeholder engagement; how regulators can use technology themselves to keep pace with the evolving market, and how the RegTech and SupTech industries are evolving.

More information, including speakers’ bios, can be found on the DFS Exchange Event page.

If you missed our launch, please listen to an audio recording of the two panel discussions, and stay tuned for future events.

Regulator of the Future Techsprint

DFS led a techsprint to design a Digital Regulatory Reporting mechanism for regulated virtual currency companies in March 2021.

DFS Speakers

If you would like to invite a DFS team member to attend, speak or present at an upcoming event, email [email protected].

News

Industry Partnerships

The financial services ecosystem is an essential partner with DFS.  We believe that by working with and learning from the industry, we can continue to support the growth of New York’s financial services hub and become the regulator of the future.

Regulatory Partnerships

DFS partners with federal regulators and sister regulating agencies around the U.S. and the world to facilitate innovation across borders.

The Department participates in several inter-agency agreements. Common features of such agreements include a referral mechanism for facilitating the entry of a financial innovator from one jurisdiction to the other to improve speed to market; exchange of information about regulatory and policy issues; dialogue and expertise sharing on fintech and innovative financial services; standards to ensure that innovators in each jurisdiction receive equivalent levels of support; and coordinated training sessions.

Israel

Working directly with Israel's financial regulators – the Capital Markets Insurance and Savings Authority, the Israel Securities Authority, and the Bank of Israel – DFS signed an MOU in June 2019 to make it easier for FinTech innovators from each market to enter the other, promoting New York and Israel as innovation hubs for financial services technology. Israel has over 750 FinTech companies fueled in part by a deep talent pool of cyber experts produced through military training.

France

In May 2020, DFS also signed an MOU with France’s Autorité de Contrôle Prudentiel et de Résolution (ACPR) to ease entry for fintech innovators into the New York and French markets, furthering New York and France as innovation hubs for financial services technology. DFS is the first U.S. financial services regulator to sign an MOU with the ACPR. Backed by the Banque de France, the ACPR is the administrative authority that supervises France’s banking and insurance sectors, ensures financial stability, protects the customers of the supervised institutions, and combats money laundering and the financing of terrorism.

Global Financial Innovation Network (GFIN)

In addition to bilateral agreements, DFS is a member of the Global Financial Innovation Network, an international group of organizations committed to facilitating financial innovation in the interests of consumers.

The Global Financial Innovation Network (GFIN) was formally launched in January 2019 by an international group of financial regulators committed to supporting financial innovation in the interests of consumers. DFS became one of the first U.S. state agencies to join the network in October 2019.

The GFIN seeks to provide a more efficient way for innovative firms to interact with regulators, helping them navigate between countries as they look to scale new ideas. This includes a pilot for firms wishing to test innovative products, services or business models across more than one jurisdiction. It also aims to create a new framework for cooperation between financial services regulators on innovation related topics, sharing different experiences and approaches.

For more information, please visit GFIN.