FRT Episode 102: U.S. Executive Order on Competition

Finance Regulation Technology

President Biden signed his new Executive Order on ‘Promoting Competition in the American Economy’ on July 9. A particularly wide-ranging and comprehensive Order, it includes 72 initiatives and recommendations for actions by 12 agencies, with key focus areas in technology and financial services, in addition to others in healthcare, agriculture, transport and more.

We discuss some of the potential ramifications, including the focus on technology platform business models and data accumulation, a portent to Open Banking, and the requirement for the US Treasury to report on how the activities of big technology companies and non-banks affect competition in finance within the next nine months. We also discuss the political dynamics of the Executive Order and the process ahead, and how the focus on technology firms compares to initiatives in Europe and China.