C:\>DIR launches Global ‘Agentic Regulator’ Hackathon to shape the future of AI-enabled digital regulation
The Cambridge Digital Innovation and Regulation Initiative (C:\>DIR), hosted by Financial Innovation for Impact (Fii), has today announced the launch of the C:\>DIR Global ‘Agentic Regulator’ Hackathon.
A first-of-its-kind global initiative, the Hackathon brings together policymakers, regulators, academics, financial institutions, fintechs, regtechs and technology innovators to collaboratively develop agentic AI capabilities and prototypes for central banks, financial regulators and other public authorities, for example, data regulators, competition agencies, communications and energy regulators. It launches with the support of the BIS Innovation Hub, the Global Financial Innovation Network (GFIN) and the Digital Regulation Cooperation Forum (DRCF), alongside 35+ global supporters, ecosystem partners and academic institutions including the Networks for Humanity, the Ethereum Foundation, Google, Swift, Ant International, Moneybox, Innovate Finance, GFTN and the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance.
As AI agents are increasingly deployed to execute complex workflows and automate decisions at machine speed across financial and governance systems, public authorities face challenges around oversight, accountability, consumer protection as well as systematic risks, with the pace and autonomy of these systems beginning to outstrip the tools regulators currently equipped to supervise them. Recent speeches and reports by senior central bankers and regulators in the UK and around the world reflect that challenging reality. Yet agentic AI also presents significant opportunities for regulators themselves: deployed thoughtfully and strategically, the same capabilities can help public authorities improve efficiency, enhance oversight, streamline processes and mitigate risks — enabling supervisors to move at the speed of the markets they oversee, rather than lagging behind them.
The Global ‘Agentic Regulator’ Hackathon is designed to help realise that opportunity and narrow the widening gap. It enables multidisciplinary teams from public and private sectors to harness agentic AI to build practical, explainable and deployable prototypes that strengthen trust, resilience and accountability across an increasingly autonomous financial system and digital economy.
The Hackathon will focus on six priority problem spaces:
Agentic Financial and High Stakes AI Advice (supported by Moneybox)
Agentic Payments, Commerce & their Oversight (supported by Ant International)
Decentralised Market Infrastructure, Smart Contracts & AI Agents (supported by the Ethereum Foundation)
AI-Driven Fraud and Scams
Know Your Agent (KY-A), Digital Verification and Digital Public Infrastructure
Market Manipulation, Agentic Herding & Stability
In support of the launch of the C:\>DIR Global ‘Agentic Regulator’ Hackathon, HM Queen Máxima of the Netherlands, UN Secretary-General’s Special Advocate for Financial Health, comments:
“Innovation can only improve people's financial health if solutions are trusted, inclusive and safe. As artificial intelligence increasingly shapes financial decision-making and digital markets, public authorities need new capabilities to protect consumers and promote financial health. I welcome the C:>DIR Global ‘Agentic Regulator’ Hackathon and its efforts to develop practical solutions that ensure technology works for people and society.”
The Preliminary Round of the Global Hackathon is now open, and prospective teams are invited to submit their Concept Note and the enclosed schematics by 31 July. Shortlisted teams will take part in a Final Round of prototype build phase, accessing synthetic datasets and shared tooling and building on the NayaOne technology platform, with dedicated compute credits provided.
The Hackathon carries a total prize pool of US$100,000. Submissions will be judged by a panel of globally eminent regulatory leaders who are fellows of the 2026 C:\>DIR Cambridge Regulator Visiting FellowshipProgramme — with the final results announced at the C:\>DIR Summit — Digital Regulation in the Age of Agentic AI on 18 September 2026 in Cambridge. Winning teams will also be invited to present at this year’s Singapore FinTech Festival in November, hosted by GFTN with complimentary tickets (two tickets to SFF per winning team).
Bryan Zhang, Co-Founder and Executive Chair of Financial Innovation for Impact (Fii) and C:\>DIR Co-Creator, shares:
"Agentic AI is reshaping our digital economy and the way we govern it, creating extraordinary opportunities alongside a new generation of regulatory challenges. Through the Agentic Regulator Global Hackathon, we are convening regulators, technologists, researchers and industry leaders from around the world to build practical, explainable solutions that help public authorities not only keep pace with autonomous systems, but harness them to supervise with greater speed, insight and confidence."
Comments from our Partners and Supporters:
"The GFIN is pleased and proud to support this global agentic regulator hackathon, which turns a shared challenge into a shared build, and that is exactly what our global community of innovative regulators was created for. The future of supervision is collaborative - and this hackathon is a reflection of that imperative."
— Colin Payne, Chair of Global Financial Innovation Network (GFIN).
"The DRCF exists to help UK regulators face shared digital challenges together, delivering greater coherence for industry, better outcomes for consumers and stronger capabilities for the future. As agentic AI reshapes markets and services, C:>DIR’s ‘Agentic Regulator’ Hackathon is an exciting opportunity to explore how advanced technologies can be applied to real-world regulatory challenges. Building regulatory capability through advanced technology is a key priority for the DRCF, and we are delighted to support an initiative that turns those ambitions into practical solutions."
— Kate Jones, Chief Executive Officer, Digital Regulation Cooperation Forum (DRCF).
"The digital economy is entering its most exciting chapter — autonomous agents will soon move value as fluidly as the internet moves information. Making that future trustworthy is the great build challenge of our time: trust can’t live in a policy PDF, it has to be executable — coded, verifiable, and enforced on the rails themselves. That’s the idea behind purpose-bound value: programmable value that reaches the right person, works in the right context, and supports the right outcome. The Global ‘Agentic Regulator’ Hackathon puts regulators and builders in the same room to prototype exactly this, and Networks for Humanity is proud to support it. Participants will build on the Vouch.finance sandbox — a live environment for purpose-bound value transfer, with rules-based issuance, identity-linked access, controlled redemption, and full audit visibility built in. This is exactly the kind of cross-sector convening C:\>DIR was built for, and we’re proud to stand behind its mission: an inclusive digital economy that carries everyone forward and leaves no one behind."
— Siddharth Shetty, Co-Founder, Networks For Humanity & CEO, Finternet Labs.
"AI has the potential to do for financial guidance and advice what online banking did for access—making personalised, high-quality support available to millions more people. But innovation and consumer protection cannot be competing priorities; they must evolve together. That's why we're delighted to support C:>DIR's Global Agentic Regulator Hackathon’s AI-Enabled Financial and High-Stakes Advice pillar. As autonomous AI systems begin to play a greater role in financial decision-making, it is vital we develop practical solutions that safeguard consumers while enabling innovation to flourish. By bringing together regulators, researchers, policymakers and industry to tackle real-world challenges, this initiative has the potential to shape the standards, regulatory frameworks and supervisory capabilities needed for the age of agentic AI.”
— Marko Katavic, Director of AI and Decision Intelligence, Moneybox.
"Agentic AI, with its ability to perform tasks autonomously, creates enormous efficiency gains while also introducing new risks. Against this backdrop, regulators recognise the need to better understand these new dynamics so they can effectively and confidently discharge their responsibilities. This is an important and timely initiative, focused on enabling the regulatory community to harness agentic AI within their environments in a responsible and safe manner. We are pleased to be an ecosystem partner and look forward to the many practical use cases that will emerge."
— Maha El Dimachki, CEO of GFTN Solutions.
"Agentic AI presents one of the most exciting opportunities to reinvent commerce and push the boundaries of what's possible. The challenge, and the opportunity, is to innovate without compromising on trust, security or human agency. At Ant International, we're excited to support the C:\>DIR Global ‘Agentic Regulator’ Hackathon and the global community in exploring bold ideas that advance trusted agentic AI and shape the future of digital commerce.”
— Carrie Suen, Vice President and Head of Global Affairs and Strategic Development of Ant International.
"NayaOne is delighted to be partnering with C:|>DIR on the world's first Agentic Regulator experience - giving the regulatory community hands-on access to emerging AI technologies, so they can see both what's possible and where the limits are, accelerating the path from idea to execution. Agentic AI's impact on financial services is transformative. Regulators need to oversee these developments effectively - and increasingly, to deploy the same technologies within their own functions. This partnership enables both."
— Karan Jain, CEO of NayaOne.
"Agentic AI as digital cognitive labour has the tremendous potential to all industries, and regulators will benefitting from experimenting and adopting responsible approaches of using such tools to regulate such tools."
— Brian W Tang, Law, Innovation, Technology & Entrepreneurship Lab Founding Executive Director, University of Hong Kong Faculty of Law.