Technology is a tool. How to use it, for what purposes and to what effects, is a choice. What does this choice involve in the context of fintech? And how can it be translated into a coherent strategy of fintech regulation? These questions are at the heart of this article. Taking a broad view of fintech as a systemic force disrupting the very enterprise of financial regulation, as opposed to any particular regulatory scheme, the article offers a conceptual framework for the development of a more cohesive and effective public policy response to fintech disruption. The article argues that the currently dominant technocratic model of financial regulation is inherently limited in its ability to respond to systemic challenges posed by fintech. The existing regulatory model operates primarily through the mechanisms of structural compartmentalization, bureaucratic specialization, and narrow targeting of isolated and well-controlled micro-level phenomena. Fintech, however, is transforming financial markets in ways that directly undermine the basic premises underlying this technocratic paradigm. Exploring these dynamics, the article develops a five-part taxonomy of the key tech-driven changes in the structure and operation of the financial system, and the corresponding challenges these systemic shifts pose to the continuing efficacy of the regulatory enterprise. This exercise reveals the fundamental tension at the core of the fintech problem. In the fintech era, the financial system is growing ever bigger, moving ever faster, and getting ever more complex and difficult to manage. The emerging regulatory responses to these macro-level changes, however, continue to operate primarily on the micro-level. The article surveys current efforts to regulate fintech—including regulatory “sandboxes,” special charters, and RegTech—and highlights the limiting effects of the technocratic bias built into their design. Against that background, it outlines several alternative reform options that would explicitly target the core macro-structural, as opposed to micro-transactional, aspects of the fintech challenge—and do so in a more assertive, comprehensive, and normatively unified manner.

中文翻译：

---

技术诉技术统治：金融科技成为监管挑战

技术是一种工具。选择如何使用它，以达到什么目的和效果。在金融科技领域，这种选择涉及什么？以及如何将其转化为金融科技监管的连贯战略？这些问题是本文的核心。相对于任何特定的监管计划，本文将金融科技作为一种破坏金融监管企业的系统性力量的广泛观点，为发展对金融科技破坏的凝聚力和有效公共政策应对提供了概念框架。文章认为，当前占主导地位的金融监管技术官僚模型固有地受限制于其应对金融科技带来的系统性挑战的能力。现有的监管模式主要通过结构隔离机制运作，官僚化的专业化，以及针对孤立的且控制良好的微观现象的狭窄定位。然而，金融科技正在以直接破坏这种技术官僚范式基础的基本前提的方式改变金融市场。在探讨这些动态时，本文对金融体系的结构和运营中关键的技术驱动型变化制定了一个五部分的分类法，并提出了这些系统性变化对监管企业的持续效力构成的相应挑战。此练习揭示了金融科技问题核心的根本张力。在金融科技时代，金融系统变得越来越大，移动速度越来越快，并且变得越来越复杂且难以管理。然而，针对这些宏观变化的新兴监管回应 继续主要在微观层面上运作。本文调查了目前为监管金融科技而开展的工作，包括监管“沙盒”，特殊章程和RegTech，并着重强调了其设计中固有的技术官僚主义的局限性。在此背景下，本文概述了几种替代性改革方案，这些方案将明确针对金融技术挑战的核心宏观结构而非微观交易方面，并以更加自信，全面和规范统一的方式进行。