The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority announced Tuesdaythat it has established an Innovation Outreach Initiative in aneffort to better understand how new innovations in financial technology affect the industry.

The initiative includes a Blockchain Symposium in NewYork on July 13. FINRA representatives, regulators and industryleaders like James O'Neill, vice president of operations atFidelity Investments; John Zecca, senior vice president ofMarketWatch and head of market regulation in the U.S. for Nasdaq;and Todd McDonald, co-founder of the R3 blockchain consortium.

“FINRA has long been engaged in discussions about fintechissues with member firms and other key stakeholders. The InnovationOutreach Initiative will enable us to better track fintechdevelopments across the rapidly changing industry environment inorder to support innovation in the industry while maintaininginvestor protection and market integrity,” Robert Cook, FINRApresident and CEO, said in a statement.

The new initiative is an extension of FINRA's growing focus onfintech. The agency launched a websitewith resources to help financial professionals understandemerging fintech areas like distributed ledgers and digitaladvice.

FINRA is also using the website to collect information fromadvisors on how soon technologies like regtech, artificialintelligence and social media sentiment investing arelikely to impact their firms.

FINRA's new Office of Emerging Regulatory Issues will beresponsible for carrying out the initiative. Some of the new team'sspecific functions, according to FINRA, include:

• Creating a Fintech Industry Committee to facilitate acontinuous discussion on fintech developments and how FINRA'srules and programs interact with technology innovations
• Conducting regional roundtables to provide a forum for marketparticipants (including FINRA members and nonmembers) todiscuss fintech topics
• Developing timely publications on fintech topics, such as theincreased adoption of regulatory technology applications and howthis may impact the securities industry;
• Enhancing existing internal processes to effectivelycommunicate with the industry, including stafftraining
• Increasing collaboration with other regulators, bothdomestically and internationally