Technological innovation in financial services is picking up speed, but U.S. state and federal authorities are still battling over how to regulate the new fintech companies.

In July, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, an independent bureau within the U.S. Treasury Department, announced that it would accept the first applications for regulation under its special purpose national charter for nondepository institutions. The department reported at the time that from 2010 through the third quarter of 2017, more than 3,300 new tech-based firms had been established, and the financing of such companies had grown to more than $22 billion annually. Lending by fintech companies had grown to 36 percent of U.S personal loans in 2017 from less than 1 percent in 2010.