FCA Pilots Digital Sandbox to Tackle COVID-19 Challenges
FCA announced its intention to pilot a digital sandbox to provide enhanced regulatory support to fintech and regtech firms tackling challenges caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. FCA is planning the digital sandbox in collaboration with the industry and key strategic partners and is planning to open applications for the sandbox later in the Summer. Shortly, FCA plans to publish specific proposals for launching a coronavirus pilot of the digital sandbox and will ask industry feedback on these proposals.
The regulatory approach of FCA supports innovators and innovative firms through its Innovation Hub, Regulatory Sandbox, and TechSprint program. Prior to the pandemic, FCA had been exploring the concept of a digital sandbox. This would enhance some key features of the innovation services of FCA, allowing innovative firms to test and develop proofs of concept in a digital testing environment. There is also an important convening role for FCA to play in helping to enable greater collaboration to solve complex industry-wide problems. FCA is, therefore, accelerating its plans and will pilot aspects of the digital sandbox on a modular basis to provide support to innovative firms during the crisis. The following features could be the foundations of a digital sandbox:
- Access to high-quality data assets, including synthetic or anonymized data sets to enable testing and validation of technology solutions
- Identification of areas of regulatory interest (as with the latest sandbox cohort) where FCA would like to see innovation play a greater role or issue specific challenges
- A collaboration platform to facilitate diversity of thinking, share lessons learned, and foster an ecosystem around solving complex industry-wide challenges
- An observation deck to enable regulators and other interested parties to observe in-flight testing at a technical level, to inform policy thinking in a safeguarded environment
- Application programming interface (API) or vendor market place where fintech, regtech, and other vendors can list their solutions and APIs, to encourage greater interoperability and foster a thriving ecosystem.
- Access to regulatory support such as development of testing plans, sign posting to relevant regulations, informal steers, or support to understand the wider regulatory environment or the authorization process.
FCA will pilot these features of the digital sandbox and tools to support firms developing specific use cases and will evaluate the effectiveness of a feature or tool through this pilot.
Related Link: Update on Digital Sandbox
Keywords: Europe, UK, Banking, Insurance, Securities, Digital Sandbox, COVID-19, Regtech, Fintech, FCA
Featured Experts
Victor Calanog, Ph.D.
Leading economist; commercial real estate; performance forecasting, econometric infrastructure; data modeling; credit risk modeling; portfolio assessment; custom commercial real estate analysis; thought leader.
Related Articles
PRA Finalizes Supervisory Approach for Non-Systemic Banks in UK
PRA published the policy statement PS8/21, which contains the final supervisory statement SS3/21 on the PRA approach to supervision of the new and growing non-systemic banks in UK.
EBA Finalizes Standards on Methods of Prudential Consolidation
EBA published a report that sets out the final draft regulatory technical standards specifying the conditions according to which consolidation shall be carried out in line with Article 18 of the Capital Requirements Regulation (CRR).
EBA Updates List of Other Systemically Important Institutions in EU
EBA updated the list of other systemically important institutions (O-SIIs) in EU.
BCBS Report Concludes Basel Risk Categories Can Capture Climate Risks
BCBS published two reports that discuss transmission channels of climate-related risks to the banking system and the measurement methodologies of climate-related financial risks.
UK Authorities Welcome FSB Review of their Remuneration Regime
UK Authorities (FCA and PRA) welcomed the findings of FSB peer review on the implementation of financial sector remuneration reforms in the UK.
PRA and FCA Letter on Addressing Risks from Use of Deposit Aggregators
PRA and FCA jointly issued a letter that highlights risks associated with the increasing volumes of deposits that are placed with banks and building societies via deposit aggregators and how to mitigate these risks.
MFSA to Amend Banking Act and Rules in Coming Months to Transpose CRD5
MFSA announced that amendments to the Banking Act, Subsidiary Legislation, and Banking Rules will be issued in the coming months, to transpose the Capital Requirements Directive (CRD5) into the national regulatory framework.
EC Delegated Regulation on Specialized Lending Exposures Under CRR
EC finalized the Delegated Regulation 2021/598 that supplements the Capital Requirements Regulation (CRR or 575/2013) and lays out the regulatory technical standards for assigning risk-weights to specialized lending exposures.
OSFI Proposes to Enhance Assurance Expectations for Basel Returns
OSFI launched a consultation to explore ways to enhance the OSFI assurance over capital, leverage, and liquidity returns for banks and insurers, given the increasing complexity arising from the evolving regulatory reporting framework due to IFRS 17 (Insurance Contracts) standard and Basel III reforms.
ECB Issues Results of Benchmarking Analysis of Recovery Plans of Banks
ECB published results of the benchmarking analysis of the recovery plan cycle for 2019.
