‘Get on’ with Kalifa reforms fintechs urge regulators in open letter

The CEOs of the UK’s leading fintech firms including the likes of Monzo,Starling and Checkout.com  have called on regulators and the UK government to speed up new reforms aimed  at better financial regulation. 

In an open letter signed by 70 of the biggest fintech firms in the UK, signatories say that existing regulation needs an overhaul in the manager suggested through the Kalifa review, published almost exactly one year ago, and warns against “resting on our laurels”, 

“The regulatory rule book requires further updating, and regulators must have the capability and culture in place to allow them to fully embrace innovation while protecting the consumer and financial stability,” it said.  

In addition, the letter says “we should seize on the opportunities afforded to us from leaving the EU”  to bring in a regulatory and capital requirements regime “more proportionate” for scaling and challenger banks. 

This also includes the introduction of a new full UK crypto regulatory regime “to strengthen Britain's global position; to extend open banking to new areas" and to support the scaling of RegTech solutions”. 

One of those backing the open letter is Wayne Johnson, CEO for Encompass Corporation. 

"During the last two years, we have also seen the increasing emergence of cryptocurrency and blockchain technology as mainstream payments alternatives, with instances of these being used in connection with money laundering and other nefarious activity,” he said. 

“Going forward, regulation, therefore, must address this pandemic-induced trend in financial activity, and adequately respond to new financial technology being deployed across the industry,” he added. 

The full list of signatories is:

Janine Hirt, CEO, Innovate Finance

Zeiad Idris, Co-Founder and CEO, Algbra

Mark Mullen, CEO, Atom Bank

Richard Bartlett, CEO, Auden

Avion Gray, Co-Founder, AVIONE

Paul Swinton, CEO, B4B Payments

Eric Mouilleron, Founder & CEO, Bankable

Marcus Treacher, CEO, CB Investment Growth Holdings

Tom Spanner, CEO, ChargeCheck

Guillaume Pousaz, CEO & Founder, Checkout.com

Charles McManus, Group Chief Executive Officer & Executive Director, ClearBank

Justin Basini, CEO, ClearScore,

Duncan Grierson, CEO & Founder, Clim8 Invest

Tom Beckenham, CEO, Comma

Charles Delingpole, Founder & CEO, ComplyAdvantage

Darren Westlake, CEO, Crowdcube

Michael Laven, CEO, Currency Cloud

Shachar Bialick, Founder & CEO, Curve

Gary Woodhead, Founder, CurveBlock

Steve Pomfret, CEO, Cygnetise

Katharine Wooller, Managing Director, UK and Ireland, Dacxi

James Varga, CEO, DirectID

Daniel Graf, Founder, Earthchain

Lewis Z. Liu, Co-Founder & CEO, Eigen Technologies

Wayne Johnson, CEO & Co-Founder, Encompass

Lisa Jacobs, CEO, Funding Circle

Stefano Vaccino, CEO & Founder, Yapily

Simon Cureton, CEO, FundingOptions

Blair Halliday, Head of Gemini UK, Gemini

Joanne Dewar, CEO, Global Processing Services

Louise Hill, Co-founder & COO, gohenry

Sean Kiernan, CEO, Greengage

Brendan Shanks, CEO, Husky Finance

Matthew Megens, CEO, Hyperjar

Duncan Stevens, CEO, Intelliteq

Christoph Rieche, CEO & Co-Founder, iwoca

Thorston Peisl, CEO, KALYP

Frederik Davéus, CEO, Kidbrooke

Alex Marsh, Head of Klarna UK, Klarna

Rob Straathof, CEO, Liberis Group

Joakim Sjöblom, CEO & Co-Founder, Minna Technologies

Francesca Carlesi, Co-founder and CEO, Molo Finance

Samantha Seaton, CEO, Moneyhub

TS Anil, CEO, Monzo Bank

Adam Holden, CEO, NorthRow

Rishi Khosla, CEO and Co-Founder, OakNorth

Mike Tuchen, CEO, Onfido

Georgina Whalley, Interim UK CEO, OpenPay

Iana Dimitrova, CEO, OpenPayd

Keith Grose, Head of UK, Plaid

Tom Williams, CEO, Point Group

Anand Sambasivan, Co-Founder & CEO, Primary Bid

Jordan Mayo, CEO, Profile Pensions

Daniel Layne, CEO, QV Systems

Joe Norburn, CEO, Recordsure

Nik Storonsky, CEO, Revolut

Sam Handfield-Jones, Co-CEO, Seccl

Jeff Lynn, Executive Chairman and Co-Founder, Seedrs

Jeff Kelisky, CEO, Seedrs,

Andrew Evans, CEO, Smart Pension

Richard Prime, Co-CEO and Founder, Sonovate

Dominick Peasley, CEO, Sprk Capital

Anne Boden, CEO, Starling Bank

Otabek Nuritdinov, CEO & Co-Founder, StormPay

Paul Taylor, CEO and Founder, Thought Machine

Oliver Prill, CEO, Tide

Kirill Lisitsyn, CEO & Founder, Torus

Daniel Holden, Group CEO, Trust Payments

Karan Shanmugarajah, CEO, WealthKernel

Dmitry Lazarichev, CEO, Wirex

Kieron James, CEO, Wonderful Payments

Tom Pope, UK Head, Tink

Jaidev Janardana, CEO, Zopa