PHOENIX (Legal Newsline) — Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich announced Jan. 17 that he has worked with State Rep. Jeff Weninger (R-LD 17, Chandler) to introduce regulatory reduction legislation that should unburden financial product and service companies that use new technology.
“I’m excited to be working with Weninger and the legislature to reduce an entrepreneur’s barrier to entry without sacrificing fundamental consumer safeguards,” Brnovich said. “My top priority is to protect consumers, and that includes being proactive and recognizing that consumers benefit from innovation. The best protection for a consumer may be a low-cost product yet to be invented.”
Brnovich and Weninger seek to create the first “regulatory sandbox” in the United States. The sandbox would effectively allow startups, entrepreneurs and even established companies to launch products on limited scales to test innovative products without heavy regulatory costs and burdens.
“As a lawmaker and business owner, I’ve always advocated for pro-economic growth policies aimed at getting government out of the way of Arizona entrepreneurs,” Weninger said. “For years, young Fintech companies have been weighed down by state and federal regulations. It can take years of work and millions of dollars in compliance costs and legal fees for entrepreneurs to successfully maneuver 50 different licensing and regulatory schemes so they can operate lawfully across the United States.”
Regulatory sandboxes currently exist in countries such as the United Kingdom, Singapore, Australia and the UAE.