The Digital Sandbox provides participants with a number of tools and features to support innovation

Collaborate

Work within the sandbox environment to rapidly develop new ideas and Proofs of Concept, discover and integrate APIs, and tap in to the ecosystem

Test

Using synthetic data to demonstrate a Proof of Concept, train a model, or validate a solution

Showcase

Demonstrate your solution to the wider community with a customisable showcase space
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Data

Access to data is a key ingredient of innovation.

The Digital Sandbox gives successful participants access to a range of data assets for testing, developing and validating solutions relating to the use cases. The following represents a high level breakdown of the data which will be available to successful all applicants.  

‍In addition, we will also look to work with successful applicants in the Cohort to define and scope their individual data requirements, over and above what is provided as standard. Where possible, we will help those teams to create or acquire data assets to meet their bespoke requirements. More information will be provided in due course.

Reference
Synthetic Entities

Synthetically created entities that are used as reference data to link all of the datasets together within the ecosystem. Statistically representative of UK Companies House.

600K Estimated records to be created
Synthetic Individuals
‍
Synthetically created individuals that are representativeof 100% of the UK population. Based on ONS data.

7 million Estimated records to be created
Banking
Consumer table, Companies table and Transactional

Retail and Wholesale banking representing transactions for consumers and customers across the UK. There will be 5 fictional UK banks that are representative of the type of transactions that you expect to see in a UK bank. We have also looked to represent some of the behaviours that we would see as a result of the Covid crisis.

5.4 million Estimated records to be created (Consumer)
600K Estimated records to be created (Companies)
5.4 million Estimated records to be created (Transactional)
Device data
‍
Device data that represents the devices used for fasterpayments across the UK and can detect fraudulent behaviour.

5 million faster payments over 100k customers Estimated records to be created
Black listed accounts
‍
List of bad actors or entities that have been highlighted as such through various risk indicators.

10K Estimated records to be created
Credit reference
Credit reference data that represents an individual or entities past track record with credit.

TBC
SME lending
Issued loans to SMEs

300K Estimated records to be created
Loan history
‍
Profit/loss statements for entities who have made credit applications

240K Estimated records to be created
SME directors

Directors and officers for entities in the ecosystem

1.2 million Estimated records to be created
COVID SME lending

Applications for Covid-specific government relief or loans

360K Estimated records to be created
Grouping
Data
Description
Estimated records to be created
Reference
Synthetic Entities
Synthetically created entities that are used as reference data to link all of the datasets together within the ecosystem. Statistically representative of UK Companies House.
600K
Reference
Synthetic Entities
Synthetically created individuals that are representative of 100% of the UK population. Based on ONS data.
7 million
Banking
‍
Banking
‍
Banking
Consumer table

Consumer table

Transactional
Retail and Wholesale banking representing transactions for consumers and customers across the UK. There will be 5 fictional UK banks that are representative of the type of transactions that you expect to see in a UK bank. We have also looked to represent some of the behaviours that we would see as a result of the Covid crisis.
5.4 million

600K

2 billion
Banking
Device data
Device data that represents the devices used for faster payments across the UK and can detect fraudulent behaviour.
5 million faster payments over 100k customers
Banking
Black listed accounts
List of bad actors or entities that have been highlighted as such through various risk indicators.
10K
Credit reference
Credit reference
Credit reference data that represents an individual or entities past track record with credit.
TBC
SME lending
SME lending
Issued loans to SMEs
300K
SME lending
Loan history
Profit/loss statements for entities who have made credit applications
240K
SME lending
SME lending
Directors and officers for entities in the ecosystem
1.2 million
SME lending
COVID SME lending
Applications for Covid-specific government relief or loans
360K
Characteristic
Description
Overview
The data for the digital sandbox falls into a few broad categories: 
- Firm disclosures - public disclosure information (company reports, web statements etc), TCFD aligned disclosures
- Geospatial data - satellite imagery, public data sets
- Fund data - fund characteristics e.g. a funds overall carbon intensity score
Scope
Currently, data covers characteristics at a global level. As we match data sets, scope is likely to be narrowed down to focus on UK companies where possible.  In general, the data points covering the 'social' factors in ESG reporting have a broader scope than the Environmental and Governance data.
Number of companies

1000 > 10,000 Large, Medium and Small firms. Data in general biased towards larger firms as ESG disclosure data more readily available for large firms. Multiple providers with data sets of varying size.
Data Characteristics
Data used for the  ESG stage of the digital sandbox is mainly  based on open  disclosures  and reviewed/aggregated by subject matter experts. Data covers >500 data points across environmental, governance and social factors.
Collection  mechanism
Various collection mechanisms across the data: interviews, questionnaires, web scraping and satellite imagery
Sectors
Range of sectors including financial services, healthcare, government activity, real estate, energy and more.
Frequency
Data generally collected at an annual frequency with the data covering 2016 - present day. Satellite imaging data has a more regular cadence of collection.
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IDE

Access to an Integrated Development Environment (IDE) for application development and data analytics.

The environment is pre-configured to provide developers quick access to cloud computing resources and to securely access datasets in order to conduct meaningful investigations and analysis.

These investigations can be connected to source code repositories to then share with teams and the wider ecosystem.

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API Marketplace

Access, connect and test a catalogue of FinTech and RegTech APIs from across the global FinTech ecosystem.

With over 300 APIs currently in the marketplace, rapidly discover new providers and leverage existing services to accelerate the development of new solutions.

Minimal coding required, and with code snippets in over 50+ languages, users of the marketplace can begin making test calls to different providers to check whether their API is suitable.

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Innovation Ecosystem

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

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Showcase Space

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

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Covid19 Use Cases

In collaboration with the industry, we have published Covid19 use cases for innovators to tackle.

Register & Apply now

Complete the registration form and verify your email to create an account.

Once you have created an account you will able to access the application system, view the eligibility criteria and submit an application.

Questions? Read our FAQs here
Read the FCA press release here

We can be contacted at digital.sandbox@fca.org.uk 

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FCA Press ReleaseCity of London Corporation Press Release

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digital.sandbox@fca.org.uk 
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