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Project Innovate celebrates first birthday with more detail on its plans for a regulatory sandbox.

The FCA recently published plans for it's much discussed and anticipated regulatory sandbox. The regulatory sandbox is intended to build on the success of Project Innovate, which has, at its core, the goal of fostering a more innovative and competitive financial services sector. The Innovation Hub has supported over 175 firms during the past year, five of which have gone on to be authorized to undertake regulated activities.

By allowing companies a 'safe space' to trial 'innovative products, services, business models and delivery mechanisms without immediately incurring all the normal regulatory consequences of pilot activities' the sandbox should accelerate the time to market (and lower the cost) for innovative products and services under the auspices of the regulator.

The Project Innovate team are keen to engage with a range of interested parties including innovator firms (both authorised firms and new entrants), software firms, and technology companies with a view towards having the sandbox up and running in the spring of 2016. A stakeholder engagement event will be scheduled in December and when that is confirmed, details will be available on the Innovation Hub Events page. techUK has already had the opportunity to provide some early input to the FCA on a regulatory sandbox but we are keen that members take the opportunity to provide their thoughts.

We will keep you posted on the December event as details are confirmed but the FCA has set up an email address sandbox@fca.org.uk for anyone who would like to provide input into the development of the sandbox but may not be able attend the proposed event.

The FCA also noted some additional solutions that industry can provide and highlighted a potential role for trade bodies in bringing industry together. A virtual sandbox, for example, could be introduced by industry, allowing firms to road test their products and services before coming to market. This would allow innovators – whether authorised or not - a chance to test their ideas and is likely to be particularly relevant to smaller start-ups, who are unlikely to build their own virtual testing tools. The paper also makes suggestions for the establishment of what would be a sandbox umbrella company.

Please also feel free to email me (lisa.moyle@techuk.org) with any input or comments.