5. Regulatory Coordination and Diffusion in Digital Financial Services and Sustainable Finance

This chapter analyses some of the emerging trends when it comes to coordination and diffusion of regulation in digital financial services and sustainable finance. To accomplish that, it examines the emergence of domestic-led networks: the Global Financial Innovation Network and the Network for Greening the Financial System. The comparison focuses on their creation, expansion, linkages, mandates, and outputs, while also placing them on the broader discussions regarding market fragmentation. The chapter builds on previous concepts advanced by international financial regulation scholars: the “sidestepping” of standard-setting bodies and international organisations, the importance of “sequencing”, and the use of “institutional bypasses” to avoid clogged pathways. Finally, the chapter argues that these new domestic-led networks can increase the flexibility that jurisdictions have to find competing versions of regulation in a more organised manner, acting as an instance of mediation; can facilitate the creation of models for regional cooperation; and can enable a quicker development of outputs and creation of linkages with the other nodes in the international financial architecture, all suggesting the scope for a complementary role for these novel domestic-led structures.