The UK's Financial Conduct Authority and the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission have agreed to collaborate and support innovative firms through each other’s financial technology (FinTech) initiatives – LabCFTC and the FCA's Project Innovate.

Andrew Bailey, the chief of the FCA, commented recently that this was the first agreement of this kind that his outfit had signed with an American regulator and looked forward to working with LabCFTC in helping firms on both sides of the Atlantic to expand internationally vis-a-vis each other's markets. As part of the arrangement, the FCA and the CFTC will be hosting a joint event in London to show firms how they can co-operate with both regulators at once.

CFTC Chairman Giancarlo had high praise for the UK's go-ahead approach to fintech, saying that "the FCA’s Project Innovate is the gold standard for thoughtful regulatory engagement with emerging technological innovation." He added that this was the CFTC's first FinTech innovation arrangement with a foreign counterpart. He looked forward to sharing information and insight derived from his sandbox, proofs-of-concept, or innovatory competitions with those of the British.

The FCA opened Project Innovate in October 2014, the better to understand the new phenomenon of fintech, and LabCFTC opened in May 2017. To date, the FCA’s Innovation Hub has supported more than 500 businesses and has helped in the authorisation of 43 businesses. LabCFTC has had at least some sort of contact with more than 150 entities since its launch last year, has published its first primer on the topic of virtual currencies, and will soon seek public comments about an innovatory competition that it plans to hold later this year.