The new financial system emerges from the convergence of technology and regulation
The new financial system is not a projection. It is being built now through the convergence of technology and regulation. More than digital, this new arrangement is structured around data, automation and new infrastructures that redefine how decisions are made, risks assessed and transactions carried out.
This transformation became evident during the 2026 edition of LIFT Day, an event presenting solutions developed at the Central Bank’s Financial and Technological Innovation Laboratory. More than a showcase of projects, it reveals how the regulator itself is organizing its thinking about the financial system’s future, focusing on experimentation, coordination and progressive construction.
Although different, the projects presented point in the same direction. In ESG-focused initiatives, for example, solutions such as AgroID show how public, geospatial and production data can become infrastructure for financial inclusion and sustainable credit. Profiles previously “invisible” to the system begin to be assessed using verifiable evidence and concrete environmental practices.
On another front, projects such as the Regulated Tokenized Multi-Asset Privacy Network indicate that tokenization is moving beyond a concept and becoming financial infrastructure, enabling the recording, management and settlement of different asset types in integrated environments with greater traceability and automation.
Meanwhile, initiatives such as Verifiable Credentials and Compliance Tokens address an even more sensitive issue: building identity, compliance and information-sharing models that reduce regulatory duplication and strengthen systemic security without compromising interoperability.
What we observe is the materialization of a global movement: the financial system is increasingly ceasing to be organized around rigid institutional boundaries and starting to operate as an integrated ecosystem.
When data becomes infrastructure, decisions stop relying on static declarations and begin being built from continuously verifiable evidence. When sustainability is incorporated into financial mechanisms, it stops being a compliance cost and becomes an economic variable. And when money becomes programmable, the very notion of settlement is redefined.
This new arrangement brings obvious gains in competition, efficiency and inclusion. But it also introduces new challenges. The great test now is creating conditions for innovation to happen with security, transparency and governance, preserving the trust that sustains the entire system.
In this scenario, regulation begins to function as infrastructure. Infrastructure that sets limits and guides behavior, but also enables new models and organizes the operation of an increasingly digital system.
I see LIFT consolidating itself as more than an innovation laboratory: an environment of coordinated experimentation in which the public sector, the market, academia and technology work together. Not to validate ready-made solutions, but to test hypotheses, reduce uncertainty and accumulate institutional learning.
The financial system’s future will not be defined by a single technology or an isolated regulatory decision. It will result from cumulative choices made over time, based on evidence, testing and institutional cooperation. At a time when so much is said about the future, opportunities to actually participate in building it are rare.
📌 Originally published in Investing.com