Supervisory policy to facilitate innovation in the financial sector

Rapid technological development affects the financial sector significantly in its business models, services, products and applications. This in turn makes the financial market more varied, ensures that financial services are widely available, and allows services to be provided more cheaply, defining the regional competitiveness of the financial sector by doing so.

Finantsinspektsioon's innovation supervision policy encourages financial companies to adopt new technological solutions that can handle risk controls and it explains the possibilities and approaches of Finantsinspektsioon in applying innovative risk controls. Finantsinspektsioon's role in promoting innovation is mainly in providing expert and qualitative analysis of the risk controls required by law, if the market participant wants to present an innovative solution that meets the objectives of the law either as well as or better than the traditional solution.

The guidelines set out the conditions under which Finantsinspektsioon can provide reasonable relief to supervised entities in assessing and applying requirements for market entry and operations. The guidelines do not exempt the supervised entity from complying with the imperative requirements for financial stability, capital requirements or customer protection if the requirement arising from the law or the guidelines issued by the authority responsible cannot by its nature be unequivocally complied with in any alternative way.