With CFTC Chairman J. Christopher Giancarlo at CFTC Headquarters in Washington, D.C.
Hong Kong Stock Exchange
Italian Embassy, Washington, D.C.
FCA
Bloomberg Live
Closing Bell with Liz Claman
With Alex Trebek - Winning Jeopardy!
Jeff Bandman leads Bandman Advisors, an advisory practice helping clients ranging from governments to global firms to start-ups meet strategic innovation and regulatory challenges. He regularly advises clients on matters relating to FinTech, RegTech, derivatives, cryptoassets, blockchain, financial markets and the US and international regulatory framework. He conducts training seminars for regulators on digital assets and international standards.
Jeff Bandman is Founder and CEO of BlockAgent Inc., a new independent SEC-registered transfer agent focused on blockchain-based digital securities. BlockAgent is new regulated market infrastructure bringing trust and compliance to digital securities. Jeff also chairs the Blockchain Committee of the Securities Transfer Association (the trade association for transfer agents).
Jeff is widely recognized as a thought leader, speaker and educator on financial markets and regulation as well as blockchain and cryptoasset law, regulation and policy. He is co-Founder and Board Member of the Global Digital Finance policy initiative and leads its regulatory engagement globally, including the GDF Regulator Forum, a quarterly regulator-only session. He teaches law, policy and regulation of blockchain and cryptoassets at the University of Nicosia’s Institute for the Future (IFF). As Lecturer in Global Affairs at Yale, he taught blockchain, cryptoassets and public policy in the Yale Jackson Institute for Global Affairs.
He has been appointed by the government of the Republic of Cyprus to advise it on new DLT legislation. He has also been appointed to perform a national risk assessment for Cyprus under new international FATF requirements and methodologies with respect to money laundering risks for virtual assets and virtual asset service providers.
He leads Regulatory Strategy for Kalshi, an innovative new U.S. exchange recently licensed by the CFTC and dedicated to event contracts.
He has been selected by the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) to the Consultative Working Group of experts for ESMA’s Financial Innovation Standing Committee (3- year appointment commencing 2021). He has also been appointed as an Expert to the Expert Panel of the EU Blockchain Observatory and Forum established by the European Parliament and European Commission (2020-2022).
Other client engagements include assisting a new transfer agent in developing regulatory policies and procedures, assisting a cryptoassets trading platform in successfully obtaining a license under a new regulatory regime in Asia, assisting a P2P Fintech platform in successfully applying to a regulatory sandbox in MENA.
Previously, Jeff was a senior official at the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, serving under two chairmen. He joined the CFTC as Special Counsel to Chairman Timothy G. Massad, and also served as FinTech Advisor to Chairman J. Christopher Giancarlo. Jeff is known as the architect responsible for the design and launch of LabCFTC, the CFTC's hub for engagement with FinTech innovation (the first launched by a U.S. market regulator). Jeff was Founding Director and architect of LabCFTC. Jeff led FinTech and RegTech coordination with domestic and international regulators and led work by international regulators on post-trade digital innovation. He also established and chaired the CFTC blockchain, virtual currencies and FinTech working group from inception in 2015.
Jeff led the CFTC's Division of Clearing and Risk, which oversees many of the world’s largest clearinghouses. He also led the CFTC’s Office of International Affairs. He worked closely with regulators, supervisors and policymakers from around the world, including the European Union, UK, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan and Singapore. He led the negotiations resulting in “Clearinghouse Equivalence” with the European Commission. He also led a strategic initiative on industry data received and used by the CFTC, resulting in changes to streamline swaps data reporting as well as the establishment of data officers and the CFTC’s first data catalog.
Jeff worked for many years in the financial industry in New York and London as a business executive and previously an attorney. He rebuilt and ran Cantor Fitzgerald’s market data business after the events of September 11. As Head of Partnerships & Alliances of LCH’s SwapClear, he helped design and launch the SwapClear "FCM service" for clearing interest rate swaps through US intermediaries after the financial crisis and spearheaded the design, launch and growth of the “SMART” margin simulator. Mr. Bandman started his career as an associate at Cravath, Swaine & Moore in New York after clerking on the US 9th Circuit Court of Appeals for the Honorable J. Clifford Wallace.
He graduated from Yale magna cum laude, with honors in History and English. He received his law degree from Stanford Law School, with honors as a member of the “Order of the Coif".
He is a five-time Jeopardy! Champion and spent his winnings backpacking around Africa, Asia and Europe.
For more details on Jeff's experience, please see his CV.
