In a regulated world, innovation depends on experience.

Regulation’s not the enemy, it’s the environment.

Financial services aren’t some state of nature, to which we’ve decided to apply a few harm-limiting commandments (”thou shalt not trade on thy neighbour’s inside information”). It’s a constructed environment. Regulation is more like a board game, where the rules create the very game they regulate. Without the rules of chess, there is no chess. Without regulation, there are no financial services.

If you think regulation isn’t necessary, you’re the reason it’s needed.

For those of us within the industry, this creative dyad of our services and their regulation is also how society tells us what it needs, prioritises, and expects of us. It’s society’s way of shaping the game. If you’re doing something in finance, which is uncoupled from society’s good, Michael Lewis will be writing a book about you.

Yes, regulation is imperfect, slow to arrive, tainted by lobbying, prone to fighting the last war, and rarely as clear as we might like, but it’s the only world we’ve got.

Insight only comes the long way round.

Innovation is a beautiful thing, but you need to work within the rules of chess to win, and you need to work within regulation in financial services. Innovation doesn’t come from wishful thinking or clever shortcuts. It comes from understanding market drivers, and regulatory frameworks well enough to see where demand intersects with possibility.

Once, I knew everything there was to know about compliance, but now, with regulations having mushroomed, skilful navigation of our regulatory environment isn’t about knowing every detail. It’s about knowing which questions to ask, when to challenge the answers, and how to apply them in the real world. That’s where experience matters. It builds instinct. It lets you move with both confidence and creativity.

Once you have a feel for the the environment, you can act imaginatively because you’re no longer feeling your way. Partners trust what you say. Regulators engage constructively. Ideas shift from theory to practice.

Turning barriers into moats.

As regulations multiply, the challenge for many organisations isn’t staying compliant, but staying creative. Don’t treat regulation as a barrier. See it as a filter, a signal and, seize it as an opportunity.

Let’s talk talk about how you can turn the regulatory landscape into a strategic advantage.