Innovate Finance and OnDeck at the White House FinTech Summit

Last Friday, Innovate Finance and OnDeck attended the White House FinTech Summit in Washington DC — an event that brought together policy and business leaders to discuss how technology can continue to benefit small businesses and consumers and how government can help to facilitate further responsible innovation. As organizer and special assistant to the President for economic policy, Adrienne Harris, noted in her published event summary “technology isn’t just changing the financial services industry, it’s changing the way consumers and business owners relate to their finances, and the way institutions function in our financial system.”

The event, which included participation from the U.S. Department of Commerce, U.S. Treasury Department, U.S. Small Business Administration, USAID, and the Council of Economic Advisers, explored how FinTech partnerships with traditional financial services institutions and forward-looking public/private partnerships can expand financial access, promote financial well-being, and increase global financial opportunity. We heard about the state of innovation from leading digital payment, digital currency, financial advisor, lending, and crowdfunding platforms. And as the leading online small business lender in the U.S., OnDeck was also pleased to hear policymakers highlight how FinTech platforms are using credit and technology innovation to increase small business access to capital, which can be used to fuel growth, job creation, and local economic development.

We were also pleased to hear repeated reference to some of the excellent policy work around FinTech that is taking place in the U.K. and that is being supported by Innovate Finance. We believe it is important to foster transatlantic dialogue around policy best practices and experience — which drove OnDeck’s desire to partner earlier this year with Innovate Finance to launch the Transatlantic Policy Working Group (TPWG) — and to incorporate related learnings into a 21st century FinTech policy framework. We also believe that a sound, rationalized, and harmonized framework will help promote the further responsible development of this space.

We applaud the White House’s effort to raise discussion around the potential of FinTech to the national level, and look forward to continuing to engage with policymakers to ensure that the most important stakeholders — small businesses and consumers around the world — continue to benefit from further innovation.

Daniel Gorfine
Vice President, External Affairs and
Associate General Counsel
OnDeck