Utah has become a major hub for the growing financial technology (or “fintech”) industry, which covers everything from cryptocurrencies to digital wallet services like ApplePay.
“We hope in the not-too-distant future, you’ll see a massive fintech center in downtown Salt Lake, and you’ll see tens or hundreds of companies being born into the ecosystem that already exists,” University of Utah President Taylor Randall said during a recent panel discussion about the future of this new industry in the state.
The numbers don’t lie. According to a recent report, 67 fintech companies created almost 8,000 Utah jobs in 2023, paying more than $1 billion in annual wages with an average salary of $131,500 per employee.
All this growth took place even as the Biden administration frequently treated the fintech industry as a nuisance to be contained rather than as a source of innovation and economic dynamism.
The IRS threatened to rapidly reduce the reporting threshold for apps like Venmo and CashApp from $20,000 to $600, burying Americans in (often erroneous) tax paperwork for the crime of embracing a convenient new payment method. Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler led a crackdown on cryptocurrencies that alienated the entire industry. Biden himself proposed a crippling tax on Bitcoin mining and worked to create a central bank digital currency (“CBDC”) which would be the first step toward a Chinese-style social credit system.
At times, the administration seemed not just hostile to fintech innovation but totally ignorant of it.
For example, former President Biden’s Department of Justice (“DOJ”) filed an antitrust lawsuit in September against Visa’s debit card business. The DOJ claimed that Visa’s dominant marketplace position was undermining “choice and innovation in payments,” but it’s difficult to see how any attentive observer of the industry could reach such an absurd conclusion. As George Washington University professor Aurelien Portuese put it, when it comes to payment options, innovation and choice are everywhere for those with eyes to see. It’s like suing horses for monopolizing the transportation market years after Model T’s started rolling off Ford’s assembly line.
With President Trump back in the White House, the DOJ seems likely to drop that lawsuit, just like the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau recently abandoned its own suit against the payment platform Zelle.
There’s a new sheriff in town, and he’s a huge supporter of fintech. President Trump campaigned against the creation of a CBDC, replaced Gensler with a pro-crypto SEC chair, and issued a week-one executive order to “promote United States leadership in digital assets and financial technology.”
Of course, there’s always more to be done. Trump should take steps to roll back bank charter restrictions that are holding back the fintech industry in Utah and elsewhere, undo former President Biden’s attempts to stifle fintech-bank partnerships through regulatory overreach, and reverse the Biden FDIC’s near-moratorium on charters for new industrial loan companies (“ILCs”), which help fintech companies offer banking services and are almost exclusively issued by Utah.
Salt Lake City — and the rest of Utah — have made enormous progress toward this goal even under adverse conditions. If the Trump administration fulfills its promise to provide an innovation-friendly regulatory environment, there’s no telling what heights the Beehive State’s fintech industry can reach.
