Fintech Sandpit has built the platform for the Digital Sandbox Pilot in collaboration with the City of London Corporation and the Financial Conduct Authority. The digital sandbox has received a huge amount of interest from the financial services industry in the UK and globally. It is the next evolution in innovation offerings that will help secure the UK’s position as the leading global Fintech market.
The digital sandbox will help the financial services industry and the UK Fintech market, worth £11 billion, to collaborate and solve some of the industry’s most complex challenges. The pilot has accepted some of the industry’s most innovative teams who are helping to address a range of issues currently being exacerbated by Covid-19, including preventing fraud & scams, improving the financial resilience of vulnerable consumers, and improving access to finance for small and medium enterprises.
The collaboration between Fintech Sandpit, FCA and City of London Corporation will provide a world-class platform to enable the industry to collaborate and address the challenges facing our society. The following features, developed by Fintech Sandpit, are being piloted as the foundations of the digital sandbox:
- Industry expert validated data assets: to test your solution, API and to train your algorithm on real statistical values. Amongst others, it includes 400 million transactional banking records, SME lending data based on 600 thousand SMEs and a 10% sample of the UK population.
- Open API marketplace: where digital service providers list and provide access to services via APIs in a standardised and secure manner.
- Integrated development environments for both applications and data science where applicants can develop and test their solution.
- Collaboration features to facilitate an ecosystem of organisations to connect, innovate and engage with other digital sandbox participants, such as incumbents, academia, government bodies, venture capital, and charities.
- An observation deck – to enable regulators and other interested parties to observe in-flight testing at a technical level and to inform policy thinking in a safeguarded environment.
Matt Allan, Founder of Fintech Sandpit said “We are thrilled to work in collaboration with FCA and City of London Corporation to provide the digital sandbox for the industry. It speaks volumes of the need for digital transformation when what’s widely regarded as the world’s most progressive regulator in the Fintech capital of the World wants to partner to support the industry and its customers.”
