The New York State Department of Financial Services has created a new Research and Innovation Division to handle regulatory and compliance matters in emerging industries, such as financial technology, or fintech, Superintendent Linda Lacewell said Tuesday.

The new division will be led by Matthew Homer, who was recently head of policy and research at Quovo, a New York fintech company.

Homer will be joined at the new division by three additional appointments announced by Lacewell Tuesday. Matthew Siegel and Olivia Bumgardner will be deputy superintendents of the new division, and Andrew Lucas will serve as its counsel.

“The financial services regulatory landscape needs to evolve and adapt as innovation in banking, insurance and regulatory technology continues to grow,” Lacewell said. “This new division and these appointments position DFS as the regulator of the future, allowing the Department to better protect consumers, develop best practices, and analyze market data to strengthen New York's standing as the center of financial innovation.”

Lacewell alluded to the hiring of a new expert on fintech during an exclusive interview with the New York Law Journal earlier this month. That expert is Homer, DFS confirmed.

Homer worked at Quovo until the company was acquired earlier this year by Plaid, another fintech company. Quovo provided a service that aggregated investment data for clients. Homer has worked at Plaid since then. Plaid specializes in financial services application development.

Homer was previously with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID. At the latter agency, Homer designed and oversaw two innovation programs, one of which helped financial regulators improve their supervision of digital firms through new technologies.

Homer has also served as an adviser on digital innovation matters to a handful of organizations, including the United Nations Capital Development Fund, the Aspen Institute, and the Cambridge Center for Alternative Finance.

He's a graduate of Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government, where he earned a master's in public policy. He's not an attorney.

Siegel was most recently a trial attorney in the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice. He previously worked in the New York Attorney General's Office, where he focused on similar work, according to DFS.

He was part of trial teams that challenged a handful of high-profile mergers, including those of AT&T and Time Warner, and Aetna and Humana. He began his legal career at Debevoise & Plimpton in Manhattan, where he worked on antitrust, bankruptcy, and commercial litigation. He also previously wrote for The American Lawyer, an ALM publication.

Bumgardner is currently director of research at DFS, where she's been responsible for analyzing some of the most complicated financial transactions reviewed by the agency in recent years. She's also led some of the agency's work on virtual currency, cybersecurity, and financial inclusion, all of which relate directly to fintech.

Bumgardner, an economist, previously worked in various research and leadership positions at Deutsche Bank, Barclays, and UBS, according to DFS. She's not an attorney.

Lucas previously served as director of the Office of Financial Innovation at DFS. He was senior counsel at the New York City Law Department before joining the state agency, and also served as a law clerk to U.S. Magistrate Judge Donna Martinez in Connecticut. He's a graduate of the Washington University School of Law.

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