Financial · guide
The seven US financial regulators every fintech compliance team should monitor
Updated
US financial regulation is split across agencies by activity, charter and state. A fintech can answer to four or five of them at once. Here is who does what, and what each publishes that is worth an alert.
| Regulator | Regulates | Publishes | Who should watch |
|---|---|---|---|
| SEC | Securities markets, broker-dealers, investment advisers, public companies, many digital assets | Press releases, litigation releases, administrative proceedings, rulemaking | Broker-dealers, RIAs, issuers, crypto |
| FINRA | Broker-dealer members (self-regulatory) | Regulatory Notices, disciplinary actions, rule filings | Any broker-dealer or BD partner |
| OCC | National banks and federal savings associations | Bulletins, enforcement actions, interpretive letters | Bank partners, BaaS programs |
| FDIC | State non-member banks; deposit insurance | Press releases, monthly enforcement roundups, FILs | Bank partners, deposit products |
| NYDFS | New York banking, insurance, money transmission, BitLicense | Enforcement actions, guidance, cybersecurity regulation updates | Anyone licensed in NY, crypto, insurance |
| FinCEN | AML/BSA, money services businesses | Press releases, advisories, enforcement | MSBs, payments, crypto, any AML program |
| FTC | Consumer protection, unfair/deceptive practices, some lending and data | Press releases, orders, rulemaking | Consumer-facing fintech, BNPL, data-heavy products |
The overlaps that surprise people
- A payments company may be an MSB (FinCEN), state-licensed (NYDFS and others), and subject to FTC consumer-protection rules — while its bank partner answers to the OCC or FDIC, whose enforcement against the bank flows straight down to the program.
- Crypto businesses can face the SEC, FinCEN, NYDFS and the FTC simultaneously, depending on the product.
- Bank-as-a-service enforcement (OCC/FDIC consent orders against partner banks) is the fastest-moving area for fintechs that never thought of themselves as bank-regulated.
A monitoring setup
Watch all seven, but filter by the agencies your business actually answers to and by severity: penalty-bearing enforcement and rules effective immediately get same-day attention; guidance and proposals get a weekly review. RegPing Financial monitors all seven sources and lets each server pick its agencies.
None of this is legal advice — the agency's own notice is the only authoritative text.
Not legal advice. RegPing republishes and summarizes public regulator notices and links to the original. Summaries are produced with a language model and can be wrong; the regulator's text controls. Not legal advice. Consult counsel before acting.