The Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance was established in 2015, and is a part of the Cambridge Judge Business School, University of Cambridge. The Centre is a research and education institute focused on researching technology-enabled financial innovation and its interplay with policy, regulation, supervision and infrastructure.
CCAF’s approach includes publishing empirical research, creating digital tools to provide data and insights, and hosting learning opportunities, events, and online capacity building programmes for regulators and industry stakeholders to equip themselves with the necessary knowledge to navigate the evolving financial innovation landscape. The centre includes 4 dedicated research clusters and a Capacity Building and Education Team.
CCAF aims to inform policymakers, regulators, governments and industry stakeholders about alternative financing instruments, channels and systems emerged outside of the traditional financial sector as well as underlying technologies. Since its inception, the centre's main research activity includes benchmarking the growth of alternative finance across different geographies and sectors via annual reports for major regions and countries. Another principal research field focuses on the evolving digital assets sector, including studies on the development of cryptoasset industry and enterprise blockchain as well as related cryptoasset regulation. The centre has also published research on regulatory and supervisory innovation, and regulatory and policy implications of the emergence of FinTech firms.
History CCAF was founded in January 2015 and aims to address the knowledge gap on technology-enabled financial innovation and related regulatory, supervisory, and infrastructural innovation around the world. The CCAF has worked with over 6,000 FinTech companies, and more than 300 Central Banks and other financial authorities in over 195 jurisdictions.
The centre has produced more than 50 reports on a variety of topics including cryptoassets, supervisory technology, fintech regulation and digital payments.
In 2022, CCAF saw major expansion with the establishment of the Cambridge Suptech Lab and the Cambridge Digital Assets Programme.
Clusters The Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance achieves its research goals through four distinct yet integrated research clusters, which work collaboratively to produce knowledge products and services such as reports, digital tools and capacity building and education programmes.
The Cambridge SupTech Lab Launched in 2022, Cambridge SupTech lab focuses on technology and innovation in supervisory technology.
Since 2023, SupTech Week is an annual event hosted by the Cambridge SupTech lab where regulators and suptech providers gather to discuss SupTech, participate in educational opportunities, and connect with key stakeholders in suptech.
The Cambridge Digital Assets Programme The Cambridge Digital Assets Programme (CDAP) was created in 2022. The programme produces datasets, insights and publicly available digital tools which provide insights into the development and intricacies of digital assets worldwide.
The CDAP focuses on three main research areas, which include Climate Aspects of Digital Assets, Distributed Financial Market Infrastructure (dFMI), and Emergent Money Systems.
The Cambridge Regulatory Innovation Hub The Cambridge Regulatory Innovation Hub (RegHub) leverages the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance’s expertise to boost regulatory knowledge and capacity for safe, inclusive digital financial services.
The RegHub achieves its aims by conducting empirical studies on regulatory innovation, creating digital tools using research data and findings, and by organising capacity building and educational programs for regulators and policymakers worldwide.
Additionally, the RegHub develops and manages the Regulator Knowledge Exchange (RKE), a digital platform that enables FinTech regulators, policymakers, and supervisors to connect, coordinate, cooperate, and collaborate.Regulator Knowledge Exchange, Retrieved 24/12/2024, Welcome to the Regulator Knowledge Exchange, https://rke.ccaf.io/login
The Cambridge Fintech Market Observatory The Cambridge Fintech Market Observatory (CFMO) leverages a decade of research to study alternative financing. It aims to provide robust fintech data for market development and regulation, launching the ‘Future of Global Fintech Research Initiative’ with the World Economic Forum, which collaborates with a research panel of over 220 institutions to research the latest development in the global fintech sector.
Major reports from the CFMO include the Global State of Open Banking and Open Finance Report, an in-depth study of the Open Banking and Open Finance landscape across 95 jurisdictions.
Capacity Building and Education (CB&E) The Capacity Building and Education (CB&E) team at CCAF offer capacity building and educational programs for regulators and policymakers, support evidence-based policymaking, and provide a platform for global collaboration and knowledge exchange.Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance, Retrieved 24/12/2024, Capacity Building and Education, https://www.jbs.cam.ac.uk/faculty-research/centres/alternative-finance/capacity-building-and-education/
The CB&E strives to make a global impact, fostering knowledge sharing both within and outside the organization, promoting collaboration across teams and dissemination of research.
Through CB&E, the CCAF has provided courses to 28 cohorts, educating over 3,000 individuals in the process. Graduates from CB&E programmes include members of more than 300 financial authorities. The programmes include a compulsory capstone project to ensure impact at participant organisations, with a total of over 800 projects.
Key Members Bryan Zhang is Co-Founder and the Executive Director of the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance, and Co-Founder of Financial Innovation for Impact. In 2024, he was appointed to the Board of the Financial Conduct Authority.
Hunter Sims is the Associate Director of Business and Operations at the CCAF and Co-Founder of Financial Innovation for Impact, following a career in corporate banking and time in Rwanda as Head of Credit at a microfinance bank.
Notable persons associated with the centre include Robert Wardrop, a co-founder of the CCAF and a Professor of Practice in Finance and Raghavendra Rau, the first holder of the Sir Evelyn de Rothschild Professorship of FinanceEmmanuelle Smith, (2011), Raghavendra Rau, Judge Business School, University of Cambridge, Financial Times, https://www.ft.com/content/f8b82016-0b8e-11e1-9a61-00144feabdc0 at Judge Business School and a former president of the European Finance Association, Bob Wigley, the chairman of UK Finance and former UK business ambassador to the prime minister.Archived Copy, Archived 14/07/2014, Our Board of Directors, https://web.archive.org/web/20140714143039/http://2012annualreport.yellgroup.com/~/media/Files/Y/Yell-Group-AR-2011/pdfs/3-2-board-of-directors.pdf
Key Collaborators and Funders The Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance receives funding from and collaborates with a host of major organisations including regulatory bodies, universities, charitable foundations, and intergovernmental organisations.
CCAF receives funding from the Gates Foundation and Invesco, the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, along with Switzerland’s State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO), the World Bank and many other public and private sector funders.
CCAF’s ‘Future of Fintech Report’ was written in collaboration with the Word Economic Forum (WEF). The World Bank cited CCAF in a report highlighting global regulatory trends in online alternative finance, emphasising its role in aiding regulators globally to adopt best practices. This report was released as part of a collaborative effort to map the evolving regulatory landscape in over 111 jurisdictions. The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) have also collaborated with the CCAF on several papers and studies.Carlos Cantú and Bárbara Ulloa,(2020), The dawn of fintech in Latin America: landscape, prospects and challenges, Bank For International Settlements, BIS Papers No 112, Monetary and Economic Department, https://www.bis.org/publ/bppdf/bispap112.pdfGiulio Cornelli, Jon Frost, Leonardo Gambacorta, Raghavendra Rau, Robert Wardrop and Tania Ziegler, (2020), Fintech and big tech credit: a new database, Bank for International Settlements, BIS Working Papers No 887, Monetary and Economic Department, https://www.bis.org/publ/work887.pdf
Institutions like the Financial Stability Board (FSB) and the International Monetary Fund have referenced CCAF's research to inform their analyses of fintech risks and innovations. Furthermore, the centre's publications have been cited in numerous regulatory and policy papers by international organisations and government bodies, some of which include the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development,OECD, (2018), Blockchain Technology and Corporate Governance Technology, Markets, Regulation and Corporate Governance, Directorate for Financial and Enterprise Affairs Corporate Governance Committee, https://one.oecd.org/document/DAF/CA/CG/RD(2018)1/REV1/en/pdf the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific,United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, (2018), Potential of financial technology in East and North-East Asia, MPFD Policy Briefs, https://www.unescap.org/sites/default/files/MPFD%20Policy%20Brief%2073_FinTech%20in%20ENEA.pdfShamshad Akhtar, Hongjoo Hahm, and Hamza Ali Malik, (2018), Financing for development in Asia and the Pacific Highlights in the context of the Addis Ababa Action Agenda, United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, https://www.unescap.org/sites/default/files/FFD%20in%20Asia-Pacific%20-%20Highlights%20Action%20Agenda.pdf the International Organization of Securities Commissions,International Organisation of Securities Commissions, (2017), IOSCO Research Report on Financial Technologies (Fintech), https://www.iosco.org/library/pubdocs/pdf/IOSCOPD554.pdfInternational Organisation of Securities Commissions, (2015), Crowdfunding 2015 Survey Responses Report, https://www.iosco.org/library/pubdocs/pdf/IOSCOPD520.pdf the Association of Southeast Asian Nations,US Aid and ASEAN, (2017), Handbook for MSME Access to Alternative Sources of Finance in ASEAN, https://asean.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/56.-December-2017-Handbook-for-MSME-Access-to-Alternative-Sources-of-Finance-in-ASEAN-1.pdf and the UK Parliament.HM Treasury, (2018), Explanatory Memorandum on European Union Legislation, http://europeanmemoranda.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/files/2018/03/DOC270318-27032018101107.pdfLydia Harriss and Samuel Bayliss, (2016), Research Briefing - Financial Technology (FinTech), UK Parliament, https://researchbriefings.parliament.uk/ResearchBriefing/Summary/POST-PN-0525
Several of CCAF’s reports have been jointly published with other universities and research institutes, including University of Chicago Booth School of Business, Tsinghua University, University of California, Berkeley, Zhejiang University, University of Western Ontario, and the University of Agder. In addition, the centre hosts an annual alternative finance conference at the University of Cambridge.
Bibliography The Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance has published over 50 reports, with topics including Alternative Finance Benchmarking, Alternative Finance Regulation and Policy, Cryptoasset and Blockchain, and Fintech Market Research.
Alternative Financing and Benchmarking Reports The Rise of Future Finance: UK Alternative Finance Benchmarking Report (2013) Understanding Alternative Finance: The UK Alternative Finance Industry Report (2014) Moving Mainstream: The European Alternative Finance Benchmarking Report (2015)