The founder building framework for a more inclusive financial future

With expertise in law and technology, Oliver sees the existing financial system as structurally flawed. His experience as a lawyer in finance and regulation led to involvement in discussions around the often fractured and sometimes combative interaction between emerging technology and the necessary checks and balances. Where Innovators and Regulators work in silos, the rules which are created to make a financial system safe and stable may also, unintentionally, create barriers to entry for the very people who would benefit most.

Cook is convinced that the goal of truly inclusive finance cannot be achieved by building on a system built centuries ago to serve a West-centric market. 

“Real innovation is revolutionary not evolutionary. We have to be honest with that framing. Take, for example, the fractionalisation of Real World Assets, tokenisation is a buzz word, the promise of bringing infinite liquidity to illiquid markets. The reality though is little more than legal theatre. In practice, assets are placed into an SPV which is then fractionalised. The industry has spent almost a decade creating hype around a centuries old legal structure with all the incumbent limitations.”

The revolution in tokenisation, he thinks, comes when the assets themselves are tokenised with no need for a wrapper “The Regulators at the cutting edge are planning for land registries where ownership records are digitized and live on-chain as the primary record. Ownership is embedded in this system instead of reflected through a legal entity. That’s going to be the game changer, where Regulators and Innovators work together.”

Countries in the Global South region are often framed as being at a disadvantage because the legacy financial systems were designed for a different time and different needs. Frameworks built for a well resourced population do not translate well to markets where a significant proportion of the population have no access to banking at all.

Oliver frames it differently.

Without decades of having established legacy systems, these markets have the rare opportunity to rewrite financial systems from scratch instead of replicating Western regulations that now struggle to accommodate innovation. The result is a system that protects the incumbents rather than encouraging new entrants, keeping barriers high for participation.  

“Western countries have spent 20-30 years building systems that now constrain innovation,” he explains. “What we are seeing in the emerging markets today is not a deficit. Now is a moment of unparalleled opportunity for visionary Regulators and Innovators to work together and create a system that is free of barriers that exclude a big chunk of people from the financial system.” 

“The work is not to import Western frameworks and apply them imperfectly in markets that they were not necessarily designed for. It is to build the regulatory architecture that the West will eventually need to reference.”

He is keen to say that there is no shortcut.

“We need to be honest; building from scratch is hard and Innovators must be proactive in reducing the evidentiary burden the Regulators face rather than complaining about it. Compliance first architecture is not a concession, it is the only way to earn the trust that makes leapfrogging possible at all,” Oliver says. 

It is precisely this approach that Oliver is targeting through Fuutura, a blockchain-based compliance-first financial services ecosystem that works around legacy constraints and embeds compliance, transparency and inclusion at its core. Its target market are the countries in the Global South where access to finance is a massive problem, locking billions of people out of the financial system, that regulations alone are proving inadequate to cover.. 

The ecosystem that Oliver and his co-founder Ellis McGrath are building starts with a trading platform but the ambition extends far beyond trading. Designed to be both accessible and scalable, the platform provides a deeper trading layer than what typically exists today, aimed not at just active traders but expanding access to wealth creation for those who have historically been excluded from the financial markets. 

At the core of this system is inclusive compliance beginning with a reusable digital identity layer. Once a user completes identity verification on the platform, the identity works seamlessly across the entire ecosystem removing the need to repeat KYC checks at every step. In markets where onboarding friction limits participation, reusable identity becomes hugely beneficial. It is paired with features like a sharing console which gives users greater certainty over the recipient of their transfers. 

Users retain control of their funds in a non-custodial wallet but the utility of the wallet goes beyond storing funds alone. Users will be able to carry out trade transactions, transfer funds, send or receive remittances and pay for everyday transactions. Over time, more services will be layered on top. The $FTRA utility token will serve as the fuel that drives the entire ecosystem. 

For Oliver, the ultimate measure of success is not adoption of the platform in emerging markets alone. It is the reversal of the flow of innovation from emerging markets to developed economies. 

“What would be truly remarkable is if 10 years from now, systems and regulations built in places like Pakistan are being adopted in the US or the UK,” Oliver says. “For that to happen, regulators would have to be open to letting innovative technologies work first.”

Oliver Cook KC is a King's Counsel specialising in financial crime, emerging technology law, and international regulatory frameworks. Recognised by Chambers and Partners and Legal 500 as a leading expert in cases involving encrypted communications and digital evidence, he has presented to delegates of The European Parliament on the intersection of law and technology. He is co-founder of Fuutura, a compliance-first digital infrastructure company building for the Global South.