I. Introduction
This is a unique time in history as the world is changing fast, abundant with opportunities and risks. Among them are the opportunities and risks brought about by technological innovation that are reshaping the financial system. National leaders and policymakers are faced with the difficult task of seizing the opportunity and creating a better system while managing the risks that come with novel technology. The instinct of many is to wait — to let others move first and learn from their mistakes. Yet in the domain of financial innovation, waiting carries its own risks. Countries that delay actions risk falling behind in ways that may be difficult to reverse.
Among the largest opportunities today is the reinvention of the financial system to make it more inclusive, bringing in 1.3 billion financially excluded adults (Klapper et al., 2025) and better catering to many more who are financially underserved. Digital financial services have been both an enabler of and gateway into the digital economy. And as the world is indeed increasingly digital — with more economic and social interactions taking place online — it is imperative to ensure the digital finance gateway is available and useful to everyone. Those who remain excluded from digital financial services or do not know how to use them for their benefit are not merely missing a convenience; they are being locked out of economic opportunities.
The key finding of our recent research is that innovation in finance rarely addresses structural problems such as financial exclusion and/or scales without active policymaking and support from political leadership. Financial sector regulators play a key role in the process of harnessing innovation with the political leadership, notably ministries of finance and key government branches, often positioning the efforts for success or failure. Therefore, this article aims at top decision-makers both in the political leadership and at financial sector regulators with a simple but urgent message: the time is now to make choices that will determine the future for many years to come. These choices will vary by context, but they can and must be made, forming a vision for each nation to thrive in its own way, leveraging the strategic innovations of today.
As noted in our report “Regulating Financial Innovation: What Does It Take?,” “[i]t took Singapore 25 years to join the club of high-income countries in 1989, driven by rapid industrialization and the country’s strategic location for trade. Today, Singapore is a financial center with a vibrant start-up ecosystem and over 2,000 fintech companies. With GDP per capita at US$90,000 (World Bank Data, 2025), it stands as a model of how deliberate, vision-driven policy can transform a national economy.” (Jeník et al. 2025.) Singapore’s trajectory is instructive not because every country can replicate it, but because it demonstrates the power of deliberate, long-term vision. The country made strategic decisions about what kind of economy it wanted to build — and then empowered the financial sector authority to organize its regulatory and policy environment accordingly. The lesson is not the outcome but the approach that others can learn from, perhaps seeing the benefits in less than 25 years.
Below, we explain the key concept of vision-guided financial regulation and how it can help leaders articulate their own transformative agenda — one that promotes innovation, manages its risks, and places an inclusive digital finance ecosystem at its heart.
II. Vision-Guided Regulation
Our work, based on desk research, remote interviews, and in-country visits across multiple emerging markets and advanced economies, surfaces a consistent finding: regulators can successfully harness innovation for their policy goals regardless of their resource levels or operating context. What matters is …
Download your sample issue here!
No part of Central Bank Payments News may be reproduced, copied, republished, or distributed in any form or by any means, in whole or in part, without the express and prior written permission of the publisher, Currency Research Malta, Ltd.
