Fintech Policy Needs a Resilience Focus

Vikas Raj is Co-Founder and Managing Partner of ResilienceVC, a DC-based venture fund backing fintech startups that drive financial resilience for all Americans. Over the course of his career, he has invested in and supported over 75 fintech companies, creating more than $5 billion in value, with a focus on inclusive solutions for underserved consumers and small businesses. Previously, he was Managing Director at Accion Venture Lab and an M&A banker at Evercore Partners.  Vikas teaches early-stage venture investing at Columbia Business School, writes on fintech for Forbes, and chairs the Investment Committee of The Catalyst Fund, a leading Africa-focused climate resilience fund.   

The Trump administration’s approach to financial services fits neatly into its broader philosophy of cutbacks and chaos. To the extent there’s any consistency in its stance on fintech and the broader financial system, it is a deregulatory reflex. With a few high-profile exceptions — particularly around crypto — the focus appears to be less on strategy than on removing guardrails. This approach is creating real risks for Americans while prioritizing tools that don’t necessarily build financial resilience.  What we need instead is a policy approach that rewards innovation that actually delivers stability for American families.

Concepts of a Plan

The few areas of fintech that are receiving real attention from this administration revolve around infrastructure-oriented tools. The most prominent of these are stablecoins, which are receiving a regulatory framework through the GENIUS Act, followed closely by the forthcoming CLARITY Act. The rationale behind these priorities remains unclear, though some hints can be found in the political and economic interests of prominent Trump-aligned crypto holders. And many commenters have detailed the risks embedded in the GENIUS Act. Still, this effort stands out as a rare example of focused policymaking in an otherwise open season.

To be clear, tools like stablecoins and crypto rails are not inherently harmful. In some cases, they could play a meaningful role in improving infrastructure and expanding access for historically underserved Americans. But at this stage, they’re mostly pipes, not fully-fledged products. By my judgment, they have yet to demonstrate any durable connection to household financial resilience. More worryingly, they often introduce new layers of volatility, opacity, and risk, especially when deployed without oversight or tied to speculative behavior.

What are we Even Doing Here?

The goal of fintech policy must go beyond simply expanding access or laying down rails. It should aim at a higher standard: financial resilience. Financial resilience means the ability to absorb shocks, manage risk, and recover — from a layoff, a health crisis, or an unexpected expense like a leaky roof or a busted transmission. If we measure success by whether Americans can survive the next $400 emergency or retire with dignity, then it’s clear that access alone isn’t enough. We need systems and tools that actually help people build stability over time.

Instability is not a side issue; it is the core financial challenge facing most households. Wages remain stagnant while many costs climb, flattening emergency cushions. Inflation, rising tariffs, and eroding safety nets are squeezing families on all sides. Savings are depleted, credit card balances are high, and delinquency rates are climbing. These are not abstract threats; they are present, daily pressures for the majority of Americans. A functional fintech policy should begin by acknowledging these conditions and asking what tools are most effective in helping families weather them.

Instead, we have a policy focused on risky plumbing. Crypto remains largely a speculative asset with no widely adopted use case in US consumer finance outside of remittances. Stablecoins may very well serve as useful payment infrastructure, but they’re unfinished.  They lack interoperability, consumer protections, and sufficient regulatory clarity, even with the GENIUS Act now through the Senate and on its way to the House. 

That’s not to say these tools have no role to play. Stablecoins could, eventually, be foundational elements of a better and more personalized financial system, as we have begun to see with pilots like JPM Coin and PYUSD that can ultimately reduce friction and free up working capital for small businesses. But that can’t be the finish line. The real question is what comes next: what gets built on top and what opportunities does it create. We need to support the layer of innovation that actually improves Americans’ lives, not just the one that moves money in a different way.

Borrowing Maps

We have seen glimpses of that next layer in other markets. In Kenya, mPesa didn’t stop at mobile money — it enabled the growth of microinsurance, nano-credit, and savings tools. In India, the Aadhaar-enabled India Stack created infrastructure that unlocked a new generation of fintechs focused on wealth building, risk pooling, and digital credit. These innovations weren’t accidents. They were the result of intentional policy decisions to support resilience-focused innovation.

For example, the Brazilian central bank intentionally designed the Pix system with interoperability mandates and inclusion goals to ensure competition and foster innovations that expanded financial access, even without directly targeting resilience. This contrasts with our current Congress which seems to be framing the problem around national security and national economic advantage.

U.S. policymakers in the House should be asking forward-looking questions. What comes after the rails? How do we create the conditions for a second wave of fintech — one that directly addresses volatility and financial stress? The current drift toward deregulation risks stifling that wave before it begins. Rather than racing to bless stablecoin frameworks for the largest issuers, policymakers could create clearer paths for community banks, credit unions, and CDFIs to participate, ensuring these rails actually reach underserved markets and support real economic resilience. At worst, the existing legislation might lead to dramatic deposit flight from these institutions.

The lack of regulatory clarity may also be actively disadvantaging the right innovators just when they are needed most. Consider what’s happened with overdraft protections and open banking, hard-earned innovations from the Biden CFPB. Rollbacks in scrutiny or consumer safeguards may benefit certain incumbents in the short term, but they leave households more exposed and disincentivize those building more responsible alternatives. For example, we’ve seen this dynamic in the buy-now-pay-later market, where delinquency rates are rising and usage is disproportionately high among consumers who struggle to pay their bills. Meanwhile, resilience-focused startups - those helping people save, build wealth, or access income more predictably — are continuing to scale without regulatory tailwinds.  

Conclusion

Responsible, resilience-focused innovators exist. We’ve backed them and are looking to back more. These companies are building tools that strengthen financial resilience by helping families access childcare benefits, purchase their first homes, save for their childrens’ futures and smooth incomes during inevitable shocks. They’re proving that it’s possible to build for financial health without sacrificing growth or margin. But they’re operating in an environment tilted toward hype over substance, where proximity to political power, not user impact, determines momentum.

We need a real strategy. Fintech policy should be measured not by the volume of money moved or the valuation of the companies involved, but by a more basic question: are we helping people build resilience? If the answer is no, we’re building the wrong things.

The opinions shared in this article are the author’s own and do not reflect the views of any organization they are affiliated with.

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