Digital Sandbox Pilot

The Digital Sandbox has been launched by the FCA and the City of London Corporation. It provides innovators with access to a suite of tools to collaborate and develop financial services Proofs of Concept.

In its pilot stage, the Digital Sandbox welcomed 28 organisations that helped to solve challenges exacerbated by the pandemic. We published an evaluation report setting out the findings of the pilot, including how it accelerated the development of innovative products and solutions within financial services, as well as key lessons learned from the pilot phase.

Improving access to finance for SMEs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wE1Uc5xdUk
Improving the financial resilience of vulnerable consumers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9IdQYerVmI
Detecting and preventing fraud and scams: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxekVDGxnd8

Genuine innovation – is the solution significantly different from what already exists in the market?
In scope – Will the solution benefit UK consumers of financial services firms by solving one of the use cases?
Need for a Digital Sandbox – Does the solution require the features of the digital sandbox features to be developed or improved?
Testing – Does the solution have defined development objectives with a pathway to production?

Building on the pilot's success, the FCA and The City of London Corporation are running a second phase of the Digital Sandbox to support the testing and development of new products and services that will aid the transition to a net zero economy. This phase includes a Sustainability Cohort, focussed on challenges with ESG data and disclosures.

12 organisations have been selected to participate in this Cohort and will work in the Sandbox from November 2021 to March 2022.

Innovation – role played in encouraging innovation in financial services to the Covid-related challenges detailed in the use cases
Speed – role played in enabling quicker testing and development of proof of concepts
Collaboration – role played in fostering collaboration, facilitating diversity of thinking and creating an ecosystem of key organisations
Pilot features – the effectiveness of the key features of the pilot (see below) in stimulating and accelerating innovation
Sustainable future – role played in informing and assisting the design and future operating model of a permanent digital sandbox

Features

Participants have access to:

Data

Access financial data sets to develop, test and train models and PoCs.

Innovation Ecosystem

Collaborate with a network of innovators, regulators, financial services firms and investors.

API Marketplace

Access, connect and test with a catalogue of existing FinTech and RegTech APIs.

IDE

Access to an Integrated Development Environment for code development and data analytics.

Showcase Space

A platform to demonstrate the solution you have developed to the financial services community.

Check out the features page for a breakdown of the available features, including a technical overview of the synthetic data assets.

Building on our lessons learned from the pilot, we are running a second phase of the initiative focussed on providing support to innovators looking to develop and validate solutions in the area of ESG data and disclosure. 12 organisations will explore solutions to address the following use cases:

How can technology enable transparency in disclosure and reporting on sustainability, especially on the characteristics of corporate assets and the profile of their supply chains? (e.g. open source and eco-friendly decentralised ledgers, centralised platforms)
How can technology be used to automate the assurance of a listed issuer’s ESG data and validation of its ESG-labelled corporate bond issuance? (e.g. IoT, decentralised ledgers, centralised platforms, satellite imaging, AI)
How can technology help consumers understand the ESG characteristics of the products and providers they engage with, as well as provide visibility around alternatives aligned with their needs and preferences?

The cohort will support teams looking to address these use cases. More details can be found by registering to our platform and exploring the event.

Transparency of sustainability reporting on supply chains

Automating and validating ESG data

Improving consumer understanding of product's ESG characteristics

The Sustainability Cohort will run from November 2021 to March 2022.

Industry engagement and involvement will be key to the success of this initiative. We are seeking input from organisations with an interest in the topic of ESG data and disclosures to form part of the Digital Sandbox ecosystem during this second phase and act as observers, mentors, or collaborators. This includes established market players, potential end-consumers of the products being developed, sustainability experts, investors and others who may be able to provide guidance and expertise to the participating firms.

We are also seeking guidance from data experts in identifying useful real data or creating synthetic data sets for the participants to test and train their models.

If you would like to get involved please register above or contact us at digital.sandbox@fca.org.uk.

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Submit an application to participate with full access
Applications are now closed.

Submit an application form detailing your proof of concept
Successful applicants can access the full sandbox, such as data assets, IDE, and API marketplace
Test, develop, and build proofs of concept in the sandbox
Collaborate with and showcase your concept to the community

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Register to be part of the Community
Signup and register to create an account