Key Takeaways
UK financial regulator launches digital sandbox
The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has announced that it will launch a digital sandbox on Thursday 20 July.
The regulator said the permanent digital sandbox will be available on August 1, 2023, opening the platform to a much wider range of innovative companies, startups and data providers.
The platform will serve as a testing environment where companies can verify the performance of their products in the early stages of development.
this Latest Cryptocurrency News It’s been almost three years since regulators began piloting the sandbox. The FCA said the sandbox will also be available to data providers and will provide firms with access to data sets, application program interfaces (APIs) and data security protections.
The FCA said:
“Until now, the platform has only been temporarily available to those participating in pilots and TechSprints.
Digital Sandbox is committed to fostering innovation and growth. More than half of our previous small business participants in our pilots and TechSprints have made positive progress, including launching new products, securing funding and partnerships, and receiving industry awards or recognition.”
Digital sandboxes provide data security protection.
The regulator noted that digital sandboxes have numerous features that will benefit developers. The sandbox’s integrated development environment allows experimentation while protecting the platform’s data assets.
Additionally, developers have access to over 200 synthetic, public, or anonymous datasets and over 1000 APIs to test and validate their technology solutions.
Observation deck functionality allows stakeholders such as regulators, incumbents, and others to observe in-flight testing at a technical level. Finally, FCA believes that sandboxes can foster diversity of thought, share learning, and create an ecosystem among teams, observers, and mentors.
Former Economy Secretary John Glenn announced plans for a 2022 sandbox with the aim of turning the UK into a cryptocurrency innovation hub. Previously, the sandbox was only available during pilots and TechSprints, where people in the finance industry came together to solve industry challenges.