Launch of permanent Digital Sandbox

The Financial Conduct Authority, FCA, has published a press statement to inform that its Digital Sandbox, after two successful pilots, will be permanently implemented starting from August 1, 2023. It serves as a testing environment for innovative businesses, start-ups, and data providers in the early stages of product development. The platform offers access to high-quality datasets and APIs, ensuring data security protection and fostering collaboration among participants. Over 200 synthetic, public, or anonymized datasets and over 1000 APIs are available, covering various domains such as payments, social media, investment, Companies House, and credit data. So far, the Sandbox was only available to those firms participating in the pilots, but is now open to a large range of financial market participants.
Starting from August 1, 2023, interested parties can apply for participation in the Digital Sandbox under different themes like banking, investment, payments, insurance, and more. Applications will be assessed based on several criteria, including being in scope of the listed themes, demonstrating genuine innovation, providing consumer benefit, readiness, and showing a need for support. The approval process will take a maximum of four weeks, and further information on the application process and requirements will be available from August 1, 2023 via this link.