Money Sandboxes Research

I recently had exposure to two industry reports that are worth bringing to your attention.  The first is the Innovate Finance research into Industry Sandboxes.

Commissioned by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), the UK regulator, the aim was to identify how Industry Sandboxes, rather than Regulatory Sandboxes, can help to create new services in finance.

Key findings of the report include:

• Addressing Cost and Inefficiency in Validating Innovative Solutions: Responses indicated that there is significant friction, both in terms of resources required and length of process, for startups and institutions in developing multiple Proof’s of Concept or “POCs” bilaterally.
• Addressing Cost and Inefficiency in Developing Collaborations: Industry feedback has been that an Industry Sandbox could be helpful in bringing participants together in the resolution of shared challenges.
• Supporting Efficiency in Compliance and Regulatory Engagement: The process revealed that within the start up community, understanding of the need for authorisation and compliance requirements in local and foreign markets could benefit from being accelerated.

Lawrence Wintermeyer, CEO of Innovate Finance and Chair of the report, stated that “Industry Sandboxes offer new opportunities for the financial services sector to accelerate the use of shared knowledge, data and technology in the process of developing innovative solutions for customers.”

Lawrence believes that industry-led regulatory Sandboxes will accelerate the development and implementation of Fintech by improving transparency and reducing risk.  I interviewed Lawrence Wintermeyer for FinTech Insider about the report and discuss why a sandbox is important, who should be getting involved, where we currently are with the regulators. You can have a listen here (start at 25m52s):

This is Fintech Insider episode 249, and starts with an interview with  Poornima Vijayashanker about her work on Femgineer, her previous life at Mint and what it meant to be at the forefront of Fintech before Fintech had broken through.

The other report I got is my friends in Singapore’s Money of the Future http://www.fintech-research.com/ report from Life.SREDA.  Every year, the guys summarise the state of the FinTech world and this year’s analysis clearly shows the Asian Tigers rising.  Igor Pesin, partner in Life.SREDA, presented the report in Rwanda last week at Dot Finance Africa.  Here’s his presentation an summary of what’s happening.

Enjoy!