Regulatory perimeter
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The JC’s Reg and Leg resource™
UK Edition 
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When you are Dread Pirate Roberts, on the high seas, in your black-sailed ship, raiding the occasional Spanish galleons, stealing the heart of Princess Buttercup and so forth, occasionally you might take time out to wonder:
As I ply my piratey trade, in the squally seas between the nations of Guilder and Florin, offering my services, to local merchants do I become subject to the laws of these lands? Must I register my vessel with the port authorities? Does it make a difference if I anchor a mile outside the territorial boundary, and invite merchants to sail out to see me, for all their synthetic prime brokerage needs?
The buccaneer who asks herself these sorts of thing in considering Florin’s regulatory perimeter. At what point, in her dealings with the people of Florin, does she become subject to the laws, regulations and most importantly, the permissioning, licensing and authorisation regime of the Florin Financial Services Authority? Must she be registered as a Florinese broker-dealer? I mean pirate.
When virtual worlds collide
The recent Ashes series illustrates both the pitfalls of the regulatory perimeter, and the conceptual challenges presented to it by the naturally borderless character of the world wide web.
In the image we see the Adelaide Oval during the second Ashes test of 2021. Allica Bank, a UK lender to small and medium-sized enterprises in the British Midlands. We dare say Allica has no great interest in the small and medium-sized enterprises half a world away of South Australia, but is advertising on TV for the domestic market of uncle Vernon Dursleys with drill-bit companies in industrial estates around Wolverhampton.
Nevertheless, the Australian financial services regulator ASIC has firm ideas who may offer financial services on Australian soul, and how they may describe it. In particular, if you are not licenced as a bank by ASIC in my Australia, you may not use the word “bank” in communications sent or received in Australia.
Hence, Allica must describe itself as “Allica Business Lending”.
But hold on: Allica’s advertising is virtual. Nothing is actually painted on the grass. It is inserted into the UK broadcast feed using some digital wizardry. Has this communication really been made in Australia, even though it looks like it? Does it make a difference where the digital wizardry is inserted?