The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), the UK financial services
regulator, has recently reported on lessons learned from the first
year of its regulatory sandbox. Although the FCA indicates that
it's too early to draw conclusions on the overall impact of the
sandbox, it is happy with progress to date. Indeed, the FCA's
progressive sandbox concept, the first of its kind in the world,
has attracted such a positive reaction, it's now being copied
by regulators around the world (including Australia, Hong Kong and
Singapore).
The purpose of the sandbox, which was launched in June 2016, is
to provide financial services companies and, in particular, FinTech
start-ups, with a live but "safe" environment in which to
test innovative products and services, before widely launching them
on the market. The sandbox has proved very popular, particularly to
FinTech start-ups and those not yet authorised by the FCA and each
cohort has been oversubscribed. Successful applicants have
