Panama’s main financial authorities, through the Financial Coordination Council, announced the launch of the Panama Financial Innovation Hub (Finhub), a platform intended to formalise dialogue between regulators and financial-sector innovators, support financial inclusion and reinforce financial system stability. Finhub is a joint initiative of the Superintendency of Banks of Panama, the Superintendency of the Securities Market, the Superintendency of Insurance and Reinsurance of Panama, the Panamanian Autonomous Cooperative Institute, the Pension Savings and Capitalisation System for Public Servants, and the General Directorate of Financial Companies of the Ministry of Commerce and Industries. The hub provides a structured forum for innovators to discuss business models and enabling technologies with supervisors and receive information on the regulatory environment, while giving regulators a channel to analyse and accompany emerging models and technologies and develop recommendations to the Financial Coordination Council on regulatory barriers identified during the dialogue. Operations are organised in two layers, a public interface for fintech entrepreneurs and a private layer for inter-agency coordination, supported by digital tools and streamlined processes; the initiative also includes a focus on women’s participation and on products for vulnerable groups and minorities with limited or no access to formal finance. At the launch, members of the Financial Coordination Council signed an inter-institutional agreement governing the hub’s operation, setting technical and operational coordination mechanisms for implementation. The Inter-American Development Bank provided technical support via its FintechLAC initiative, and positioned the Panama hub as part of a regional network it has supported since 2020 in Costa Rica, El Salvador, Honduras and the Dominican Republic.

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