in the european union ’ s ( eu ) fintech action plan, one of the explicit goals is enabling innovative business models to scale up across the eu region through clear and consistent licensing requirements. actions include reviewing regulation on investment - based and lending - based crowdfunding service providers for business. the proposal specifically aims to ensure an appropriate and proportionate regulatory framework, which allows crowdfunding platforms that want to operate cross - border to do so with a comprehensive ‘ passporting ’ regime under unified supervision. another action that supports innovation includes a review of the current authorising and licensing approaches for innovative fintech business models. the european commission will set up an expert group to assess whether there are any unjustified regulatory obstacles to financial innovation in the eu ’ s financial services regulatory framework. page 6 of 11 authorities should therefore not merely acknowledge or observe innovation but should actively review fintech innovations ( including those with new business models ) with a view to ensuring proportionate and consistent authorising and licensing regimes. this practice is driven by an underpinning open philosophy and a flexible approach to fintech. speakers and participants who have had experience of this approach in other jurisdictions will tell us more about the impact of this practice. we will hear how initiatives in cryptocurrencies, digital identity and digital mobile wallets may benefit from a pro - innovation philosophy. we will also hear from jurisdictions with smart nation policies about the importance of such national philosophies and policies. of course, as authorities, we will need to ensure level playing fields and manage the risk of regulatory arbitrage. this is why a coordinated multiple regulator approach is so important. practice 2 : the creation of innovation facilitators such as hubs and sandboxes to keep close to emerging developments and foster shared learning the second practice is the review and creation of structural mechanisms to enable ongoing market engagements. these include efforts aimed at collecting fintech data, organising market outreach initiatives, and implementing structures such as innovation hubs, innovation accelerators and regulatory sandboxes. each of the reports strongly encourages shared learning with a diverse set of private - sector parties. in order to support the benefits of innovation through shared learning and through greater access to information on developments, authorities should continue to improve communication channels with the private sector and should continue sharing their experiences with innovation hubs, innovation accelerators and regulatory sandboxes, besides other forms of interaction. the reports suggest that the successes and challenges derived from such approaches may provide fruitful insights

and the other nordic countries. in the nordic countries, support for populist parties has ranged between 15 – 20 percent in recent years. in finland, the ( true ) finns party has scored between 17 – 19 percent of the vote in the last three national elections in 2011 – 19. so why is it so that even the “ happiest people in the world ” are so prone to populist temptations? as mentioned, the combination of economic insecurity and threats to national identity appear to trigger populist surges. this is amplified if the political system fails to address citizens ’ concerns. in fact, the economic argument about populism seems to be as much about distribution as aggregate growth – a favourable macro - economic development may mask big differences across different groups. the distributional impacts of a key driver of today ’ s changes – especially technological development, such phenomena as artificial intelligence, automatization, digitalisation, robotics – have been widely recognised for some time. initially, technological development mainly crowded out low - skilled labour. but more recently, with the latest advances in artificial intelligence, it is many medium - skilled jobs that are being threatened, thus placing an even bigger premium on high - skilled jobs and education. one very relevant and realistic recent book that relate to populism is by torben iversen and david soskice called democracy and prosperity – reinventing capitalism through a turbulent century. they refute the crisis of democracy, and rather call the present state of affairs as a challenge for democracy. as comparative or international political economists, their point of departure is the ongoing economic transformation into a fully - fledged knowledge economy, which is very skill - intensive. for them, the question is how the majority of the people – or voters – can feel that they have a place, stake and future for their children in the society. the key intervening variable is education. not primarily as a civilizational project, but rather as a way of maintaining one ’ position in the reasonable prosperous middle class, or at least keeping up the aspiration for one ’ s children. they underline the ‘ aspirational vote ’ of the middle class. iversen and soskice also counter the argument that states are powerless in the face of international capitalism. for them, location matters, and it is the clusters of industries that drive the economy and the thriving cities that attract people. again, education and training are critical to keep the people on board. and the democratic