NayaOne wins tender to operate FCA’s permanent digital sandbox

UK-based NayaOne has been awarded the Financial Conduct Authority’s (FCA’s) tender to build and operate a permanent ‘Digital Sandbox’ service.

Speaking at the Innovate Finance Global Summit yesterday (17 April), Jessica Rusu, the FCA’s chief data, information and intelligence officer, announced the creation of a new permanent Digital Sandbox to support businesses and start-ups in developing new proofs of concept for products and services.

FCA’s Jessica Rusu

Rusu told delegates: “From summer 2023, our Digital Sandbox will expand to support a broader range of innovators. It will be available even for applicants outside of, or after, specific TechSprint activities.

“We benefit from supporting this innovation by promoting solutions to complex regulatory challenges like APP fraud, greenwashing, and scam detection.”

Companies are selected for the Digital Sandbox initiative through a selection process that evaluates their “potential to make a significant impact” in the financial services industry, according to NayaOne.

During her speech, Rusu outlined what is in the sandbox, including synthetic transaction and market data, “such as that used in the Push Payment Fraud TechSprint”, payments and transactions data, consumer data and investments data.

“We are also crowd-sourcing data, enabling an Open ‘API marketplace’ giving access to other fintech datasets, with over 1,000 APIs already on-boarded,” she added.

Karan Jain, chief executive officer of NayaOne, said: “We are thrilled to have been selected for this prestigious opportunity to collaborate with the FCA on driving innovation in financial services.

“We believe that our digital transformation platform and synthetic data technology will be a valuable asset in helping fintech companies to develop and test their products more efficiently and effectively.”

In October last year, NayaOne worked with Lloyds Banking Group on the launch of its ‘Innovation Sandbox’, designed to bring “a variety of fintech opportunities” through the design and test cycle more efficiently.

Jain added: “We look forward to developing the relationship with the FCA and being part of any future focus areas, they have, for development within the industry.”