FCA awards NayaOne tender for permanent digital sandbox

London-based digital sandbox provider NayaOne has been selected by the Financial Conduct Authority to build and operate its permanent digital sandbox.

The announcement was made on stage at the Innovate Finance Global Summit in London today by Jessica Rusu, chief data, information and intelligence officer at the FCA.

It comes after the FCA ran two digital sandbox pilots between 2020 and 2022 that gave startups access to synthetic and publicly available data assets to test, train and validate their products.

Following the pilots and on the recommendations of the Kalifa Fintech Review, the FCA announced it would make the digital sandbox permanent starting in Summer 2023.

NayaOne has been awarded the tender to create and operate that sandbox, building on the work it has already done creating sandboxes for other institutions like Lloyds Banking Group.

"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,” said NayaOne CEO Karan Jain on the news.

“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”

NayaOne is both a service provider that offers digital sandboxes for larger financial institutions to evaluate fintechs in a structured environment, and also the operator of a marketplace of vetted fintech solutions.