Linda Lacewell, the newly confirmed superintendent of the New York State Department of Financial Services, plans to use her position as head of one of the world's leading financial regulators to further strengthen the agency's work protecting consumers, she said in an interview.

Lacewell, speaking exclusively with the New York Law Journal, said she expects the agency's role as a national leader on consumer protection to grow while she's at the helm.

“Whether it's a banking-related decision, an insurance-related decision, or any of our agents or brokers, licensed entities, this is all affecting real people,” Lacewell said. “Even keeping the markets safe and secure is affecting real people.”

She's the third person to lead the state Department of Financial Services, which was created in 2011 as a merger between the state's previous banking and insurance agencies. Since then, DFS has emerged as a global leader in regulating financial institutions, mostly because many of them conduct a large part of their business in New York.

“I'm very proud, and at the same time humbled because I know what an enormous undertaking it is,” Lacewell said. “I'm just glad we have such high-quality regulators, lawyers, examiners and others who are doing the work every day to keep our markets safe, to protect consumers, and help position the agency to deal with the great waves of innovation that are currently underway.”

Among those waves of innovation is the emerging financial technology industry, better known as fintech. As companies have joined the burgeoning industry, DFS has been there to cautiously guide them in a way intended to prevent abuses that could harm consumers and impact the economy.

Lacewell pointed to the online lending industry, a major part of fintech. About a decade ago, only 1% of personal loans were done online, she said. Now, that's up to 38%.

DFS is planning a series of new steps to bolster its oversight of fintech, Lacewell said. She's made it a top priority of her tenure since first taking office as acting superintendent of the agency in February. She was confirmed by the State Senate in late June.

First, the agency is planning to hire a dedicated expert in fintech who's well-versed in the industry and has experience in government. That person, who hasn't been announced as of yet, will be tasked with developing a long-term plan for the agency's oversight of fintech, which appears to be a growing part of its operations each year.

Lacewell said the expert won't be alone in developing that strategy. The agency plans to engage in leaders in fintech to see how they've operated, and decide what's worked and what hasn't. That way, it can develop regulations that will both help other fintech companies grow while protecting consumers.

“The leaders in fintech who may have developed best practice in terms of consumer protection—we want to understand what those are because we might be helpful in making them permanent for all of fintech so there's a level playing field,” Lacewell said.

DFS is also planning to do either a roundtable discussion, or even a conference, to generate input and insight into the fintech industry in the future, Lacewell said.

It's a task, among many, that Lacewell considers herself particularly qualified to confront, and those familiar with her work agree.

She started her career as a white-collar defense attorney with Morvillo Abramowitz Grand Iason & Anello in Manhattan. She then played the other side of the field, working as a federal prosecutor in Brooklyn for nearly a decade.

Lacewell was a member of the Enron Task Force, a panel of federal prosecutors and investigators responsible for reviewing what caused the energy company to file for bankruptcy in 2001.

She then joined the Cuomo administration when he took office as New York attorney general in 2007, and has worked under him in various capacities since. After Andrew Cuomo was elected as the state's governor in 2010, Lacewell served as his counsel and was later appointed as the state's first chief risk officer.

Before her appointment to lead DFS, Lacewell was chief of staff to the executive chamber, where she oversaw day-to-day operations and was considered one of Cuomo's closest advisers.

“Every step that I've taken in my career has led to the next and made me a better lawyer, and someone who is more effective in identifying, anticipating, preventing problems, and fixing them systemically,” Lacewell said.

She's already hit the ground running since taking office five months ago. She announced the creation of a new division of DFS akin to the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in April, for example.

The newly formed Consumer Protection and Enforcement Division was launched as the state's response to what Lacewell said was the CFPB's recent shift from a strong enforcement tool of the federal government to more of an educational agency. The state saw a gap and decided to fill it, Lacewell said.

“New York has always led, including on consumer protection, but our obligation now is even more vital because some might say the CFPB, when it was operating well, was market baseline, and New York could actually lead further in respect to consumer protection,” Lacewell said.

DFS has also created a dedicated cybersecurity division, which Lacewell said was the first of its kind to be established by any insurance or banking regulator in the country.

On the insurance side of the agency, Lacewell expects pharmacy benefit managers to be a new area of attention for DFS after the Legislature approved a bill this year requiring them to regularly register with the state. It's the first time the agency will have a comprehensive list of those individuals, who act as third parties to negotiate prescription drug prices.

“That's definitely going to be an area of focus on the health care side,” Lacewell said.

But there are also smaller changes that Lacewell has made, starting with her own executive staff. She announced a diverse team of hires in May, ranging from her own chief of staff to the heads of certain areas of the agency.

Lacewell said working with a diverse team of experts was a priority for her because of the different perspectives they bring to the table, particularly in the industries that DFS is responsible for overseeing.

“If you sit around a table talking to everyone who looks just like you then you're talking to yourself,” Lacewell said. “We need people who will bring different perspectives to the table so the problem can be thought through thoroughly and all the creative solutions can emerge.”

Her nomination sailed through the State Senate without any opposition, but Lacewell was questioned by Republicans during her confirmation hearing on where her priorities for DFS would lie. They criticized her predecessors for going heavy on enforcement instead of acting to promote the state's banking industry.

Lacewell, at the hearing, told lawmakers that DFS could “chew gum and walk at the same time” under her leadership. She said the same when asked about those concerns.

“Our consumer protection standards and oversight have to remain because that protects everyone and that is our core function,” Lacewell said. “But where we can lift burdens that are obsolete or unneeded, we will do that and we'll be mindful of other ways we can be helpful in fostering the growth and stability of these industries.”

READ MORE: