On 16 June 2026, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission published Request for Information No. 9254-26, seeking public input on CFTC regulations, guidance documents, orders, and no-action letters that impede fintech firms from establishing partnerships with CFTC-regulated institutions. The CFTC issued the RFI to carry out its obligations under Executive Order 14405 on facilitating innovation and competition in financial services. The public comment period ran for 21 days from Federal Register publication and has since closed; the CFTC will use the administrative record to determine whether to initiate rulemaking on specific identified barriers.
The RFI is grounded in the CFTC's authority under the Commodity Exchange Act, 7 U.S.C. §§ 1 et seq., and covers the full range of CFTC-administered instruments. The Commission sought input on registration and licensing requirements in Parts 3, 5, and 30 of 17 C.F.R. that may present barriers for fintech entrants; technology-related provisions in Part 37 (designated contract markets) and Part 49 (swap data repositories); the adequacy of no-action letter processes for novel product structures; and the application of existing CFTC rules to blockchain-based trading and settlement systems.
Fintech firms and CFTC-regulated institutions that identified compliance friction in the comment period have placed those concerns on the regulatory record, which the Commission will use in any subsequent rulemaking. CFTC-registered entities, including futures commission merchants, introducing brokers, and designated contract markets, that found CFTC requirements conflicting with fintech partnership structures had the opportunity to raise those conflicts formally. Prediction market platform operators subject to CFTC Part 40 designation requirements should monitor whether their particular obligations were addressed in the comment record and whether any resulting rulemaking proposes changes in that area.
The RFI does not commit the Commission to rulemaking and does not constitute a proposed rule; responses are advisory and the CFTC retains discretion to initiate, limit, or decline any subsequent regulatory review. The 21-day comment period, shorter than the standard 60-day period for proposed rules, reflects the information-gathering rather than notice-and-comment character of the proceeding. There is no fixed timeline for the CFTC to issue any rulemaking arising from the RFI.
Licentium advises digital asset businesses and fintech companies on CFTC regulatory requirements and market access strategy. Work we undertake includes CFTC registration analysis, event contract and prediction market regulatory assessment, digital asset derivatives compliance, and regulatory structuring for fintech-bank partnership models.