The FCA Goes Green

As part of its ongoing support for innovation, and of course desire to save the world through FinTech. The FCA has announced Green Fintech Challenge,  which we at RiskSave wholeheartedly support. It is aimed at firms developing green solutions that need regulatory support to develop a new product. The Challenge is open to firms large and small, and we expect to see incumbents and seed stage startups in the first cohort.

Although, in many cases a Green proposition may not need regulatory support. Eg A peer-to-peer lender pivoting to more focus on Green projects. The FCA’s aim is to aid the development of a financial services sector that can respond to the challenges of climate change, and become a force for good.

The FCA has provided examples of products that may be eligible

• supporting capital flows/investment towards green products and services,

• driving efficiency in the issuance, distribution or adoption of green products,

• managing climate-related risk posed to market participants,

• environmental impact measurement, or

• delivering new green financial products

The project is a new green string to the Innovative bow being develop by the FCA. Ideas that don’t quite fit into the Green Challenge will still be eligible for official support from a variety of channels, such as the Advice Unit or Project Innovate (or of course from your friendly compliance consultant risksave.com).

Successful applications will be able to engage in pre-launch testing before authorisation alongside working with dedicated case officers who can guide them towards an acceptable and innovative solution.

As yet we are unsure whether this is a one off, but given the success of Project Innovate I wouldn’t be surprised to see a series of Green Challenges. The UK FinTech ecosystem will hopefully respond with a series of exciting products that both benefit consumers and the environment.