Last year, the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) expressed intentions about launching a global sandbox, and just a few months later, announced a collaboration with regulators around the world to create that sandbox for innovative fintech firms to interact with regulators. Fintechs across the globe face key issue at a point in their growth: scaling. Or specifically, expanding into other jurisdictions with vastly differing laws and ensuring compliance.

The programme, christened the Global Financial Innovation Network (GFIN), aims to mitigate those issues, and saw the participation of 17 regulators.

Since the announcement, 44 unique applications came to GFIN’s network of regulators. Each regulator apparently had at least one hopeful to consider against their unique screening criteria.

Of those, only 8 made the cut. Now, the firms are developing testing plans for their cross-border trial, and only the ones that develop satisfactory plans for each jurisdiction’s criteria will actually enter the pilot testing phase.

The 8 hopefuls for the GFIN sandbox are:

Alphapoint

Alphapoint is a software company offering products built on public and private blockchains that support the requirements for issuance, custody and trading of digital assets with liquidity across multiple exchanges. Alphapoint claims to be the only enterprise-grade software that enables both tokenisation and illiquidisation of assets, and for trade of those assets on an exchange.

Regulators affected:

• Bermuda Monetary Authority (BMA)
• Bank of Lithuania (LB)

Ascent RegTech

Ascent operates a cloud-based AI-driven Regtech solution that automatically maps a customer’s specific regulatory obligations and ongoing rule changes, while also enabling end-to-end compliance management. The product helps firms see similarities and differences in regulatory obligations across regulators and countries.

Regulators affected:

• Australian Securities & Investments Commission (ASIC)
• Autorité des marchés financiers (AMF Québec)
• Dubai Financial Services Authority (DFSA)
• Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA)
• Ontario Securities Commission (OSC)

Atlant

Atlant is a London-based company known generally as a real estate-related decentralised blockchain platform, offering tokenised ownership and global P2P rentals.

On the GFIN front, Atlant wants to run digital securities platform offering primary issuance of digital shares & debentures, secondary trading and optimized post-trade, with automatic clearing, settlement and custody.

Regulators affected:

• Central Bank of Bahrain (CBB)
• Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS)
• Jersey Financial Services Commission (JFSC)
• Bank of Lithuania (LB)

Coinvestion

Based Vancouver, Canada, Coinvestion is a platform that uses blockchain to allow users to invest in real estate shares as securities and develops fractional ownership schemes. Their goal is to allow an easier avenue for people to invest into real estate.

Regulators affected:

• British Columbia Securities Commission (BCSC)
• Bermuda Monetary Authority (BMA)
• Jersey Financial Services Commission (JFSC)
• Bank of Lithuania (LB)
• Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS)

DACX

DACX is an exchange platform that uses DLT, AI, and high performance computing to offer a secure and compliant marketplace. One of its offerings, and what DACX is planning to put on the global sandbox utilises DLT and machine learning to facilitate cross-border transactions of multi-currency payments, assets and commodities via tokenisation, smart contracts and escrows.

Regulators affected:

• Astana Financial Services Authority (AFSA)
• And others to be confirmed​​​​​​​

Onfido

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Onfido is a software company that helps businesses verify user identities using a selfie and a photo-based ID.

Its preposition in the GFIN sandbox is for consumers to securely control their digital ID, and share or transfer that identity across financial services organisations for KYC checks.

Regulators affected:

• Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA)
• Financial Conduct Authority (FCA)
• Bank of Lithuania (LB)
• Ontario Securities Commission (OSC)

Starling Trust

Starling trust is an applied behavioural sciences technology company that has developed a predictive behaviourial analytics platform using machine learning and electronic communications data to allow users to measure, manage and mitigate culture and conduct risks. They will be partnering with a select group of global banks, with an initial focus on the three lines of defense risk framework.

Regulators affected:

• Australian Securities & Investments Commission (ASIC)
• Dubai Financial Services Authority (DFSA)
• Financial Conduct Authority (FCA)
• Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA)

Tradle

Tradle is a blockchain-based KYC and onboarding platform that uses AI, IoT and cloud to help financial institutions meet regulatory obligations for SMEs, Corporates, Capital markets, Wealth Management, Retail and Unbanked customers and helps regulators provide guidance and supervision for their markets. They will work with GFIN on self-executing cross-border KYC policies.

Regulators affected:

• Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM)
• Financial Conduct Authority (FCA)