Regulatory governance of the digital economy: Lessons from the financial services sector

Philipp Paech and Natalie Cohen

No 24, OECD Regulatory Policy Working Papers from OECD Publishing

Abstract: This working paper examines whether lessons from financial sector regulation can inform the regulatory governance of the digital transformation. Drawing on case studies from the Great Financial Crisis of 2008-2010 and the emergence of digital finance, the study identifies six challenges: information asymmetries between supervisory authorities and market participants; systemic risk recognition; regulatory adaptability; path dependencies arising from the timing of intervention; regulatory effectiveness; and international co-ordination. For each challenge, the paper derives lessons and assesses their relevance for the digital economy. The analysis reveals substantial structural parallels between the two domains, while identifying factors that amplify regulatory challenges in digital contexts – including the speed of technological change, the opacity of algorithmic systems, cross-sectoral business models, and accelerated path dependencies. The paper concludes that effective governance of the digital transformation demands resource commitments commensurate with those required for post-crisis financial sector reform.

Keywords: Digital transformation; Financial regulation; Policy learning; Regulatory governance; Technology governance (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F55 G28 L51 L86 O33 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026-06-29
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-pay and nep-reg
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1787/e881273f-en (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oec:govaah:24-en

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in OECD Regulatory Policy Working Papers from OECD Publishing Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ( this e-mail address is bad, please contact ).