Office of Innovation

Our Office promotes responsible innovation in the industries and professions regulated by IDFPR. We meet with and provide resources to innovators, entrepreneurs, and consumer advocates. We identify and research emerging marketplace risks, trends, and opportunities related to innovation. And we develop and coordinate innovation policy initiatives across IDFPR’s Divisions of Banking, Financial Institutions, Real Estate, and Professional Regulation, as well as work with other state and federal regulators.

We’re here to help innovators and entrepreneurs get the information they need to navigate our regulations.

If you have an innovative idea or business that poses regulatory questions under IDFPR’s jurisdiction, please contact us at FPR.Innovation@illinois.gov with your name, title and affiliation, e-mail address, description of how your product or service represents a genuine innovation, and specific questions for IDFPR.

We are most interested in hearing from innovators and entrepreneurs who have already researched the regulatory requirements that may apply to their proposed innovation and have specific questions for us.

We’re also available to meet with consumer advocates and anyone seeking to encourage responsible innovation in Illinois. For general inquiries, please email FPR.Innovation@illinois.gov.

Please be aware that meetings with the Office of Innovation are intended to be merely informational and to allow you to meet informally with IDFPR staff. In addition, any information that you share with IDFPR may be subject to public disclosure through the Illinois Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) (5 ILCS 140)

- please do not submit any material you consider to be confidential or sensitive.

As the first Regulatory Innovation Officer for IDFPR, David DeCarlo oversees the Office of Innovation and advises Department leadership and the Governor’s Office on innovation policy. David joined IDFPR in November 2019 as Deputy General Counsel for Banking, overseeing a team responsible for regulatory affairs and enforcement actions related to banking, digital assets, mortgages, and student loans. Before joining IDFPR, David advised fintech and financial services companies on regulatory matters in private practice and advised senior officials at the Federal Reserve on open market operations and financial market developments.