Sandbox Express steams into Singapore’s fintech station
The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) is hellbent on hogging the fintech news as its latest idea is to speed up the world of sandboxes.
Like a Hollywood starlet it loves the fintech limelight
Just yesterday (13 November) it teamed with Singapore Exchange (SGX) to develop delivery versus payment (DvP) capabilities for the settlement of tokenised assets across different blockchain platforms.
Also yesterday, MAS revealed it is launching a $5 billion private market programme to boost the region’s private equity and venture capital scene.
While on 12 November, the busy regulator (do they sleep at MAS?) released a set of principles as it seeks to promote fairness, ethics, accountability and transparency (FEAT) in the use of artificial intelligence (AI) and data analytics in finance.
In the latest round of action, it has today (14 November) released a consultation paper on the creation of pre-defined sandboxes, known as Sandbox Express, to “complement” its existing Fintech Regulatory Sandbox that was launched in 2016.
The aim is to enable firms which intend to conduct regulated activities to embark on experiments “more quickly”, without needing to go through the existing bespoke sandbox application and approval process.
The Sandbox Express is suitable for activities where the risks are “generally low, or well understood and could be reasonably contained within the specific pre-defined sandbox”. As a start, it will include sandboxes specifically pre-defined for insurance broking, recognised market operators and remittance businesses.
MAS says each pre-defined sandbox will have its boundaries, expectations and regulatory reliefs pre-determined. The applicant must declare that it is able to fully comply with all expectations of the pre-defined sandbox that it has applied for, which includes providing clear disclosure and obtaining an acknowledgement from the user before the user can be on-boarded as a customer.
MAS will assess applications based on two criteria – (i) technological innovativeness of the financial service, and (ii) fitness and propriety of the applicant’s key stakeholders.
The applications will be fast-tracked, with approval decisions granted within 21 days.
The public consultation will run from 14 November to 13 December 2018. A copy of the consultation paper is available here.
