In early June 2020, the Financial Supervisory Commission, Taiwan (FSC) signed a financial technology (FinTech) cooperation agreement with members of the Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA), which are securities regulatory authorities in Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Ontario, Québec and Saskatchewan. This is the fourth FinTech cooperation agreement completed by the FSC after signing with Poland, the US State of Arizona, and France.
    The agreement extends the work of the CSA Regulatory Sandbox Initiative and the FSC FinTech Regulatory Sandbox. Notably, it includes a referral mechanism for innovative businesses, and will enhance and clearly define information-sharing among these jurisdictions. The framework enables regulators on both sides to refer startups to their counterparts, provide support to allow the regulatory regime in each jurisdiction to be better understood, and share related information on their respective markets and innovations in financial services. This agreement will enhance FinTech supervisory cooperation between the two sides, as well as create more opportunities for FinTech businesses from Taiwan and Canada to expand into each other’s markets.
    The CSA has launched the CSA Regulatory Sandbox to support FinTech businesses seeking to offer innovative products, services and applications in Canada. It allows firms to register and/or obtain exemptive relief from securities laws requirements, under a faster and more flexible process than through a standard application, in order to test their products, services and applications throughout the Canadian market on a time limited basis.
    Members of the CSA foster innovation throughout Canada by encouraging open dialogue on applicable regulation with FinTech and by participating in industry events. Some members of the CSA are also members of the Global Financial Innovation Network (GFIN), which efficiently enables innovative firms to interact with regulators, and to help them navigate between countries as they look to scale new ideas.
    The FSC continues to strengthen its links with international associations at both the bilateral and multilateral levels. Besides signing four FinTech cooperation agreements with the regulators of Poland, the US State of Arizona, France, and Canada respectively, the FSC became a member of the GFIN in May 2019, to promote the global FinTech cooperation.

Contact: Yao-Pai Huang, Section Chief
Department of International Affairs, FSC
Tel: +886 (2) 8968-0080