The UK’s markets watchdog is spinning up a new AI lab – as almost half the applications made to its “Digital Sandbox” now come with an AI focus.
Jessica Rusu, Chief Data, Information and Intelligence Officer at the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) announced the move on Wednesday.
(The FCA regulates the conduct of nearly 42,000 businesses in the UK.)
“These initiatives are built with your needs in mind, and we are eager to continue collaborating to ensure that the next wave of innovation is more impactful than the last” she said in a speech celebrating FCA Innovations.
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Jessica Rusu said the Lab will be made up of four components:
- AI Spotlight (a “repository of practical solutions that showcase applications of AI across specific themes”)
- AI Sprint (a regular policy sprint, starting January 2025.)
- AI Input Zone (a new platform for feedback on AI policy)
- Supercharged Sandbox and testing (the FCA will “enhance our Digital Sandbox infrastructure through greater computing power, enriched datasets and increased AI testing capabilities.”)
The FCA AI Lab will build on the regulator’s genuinely pioneering work around facilitating sandboxes that, for example, help firms experiment with novel financial services products in a controlled environment.
Its release comes amid rampant AI-centric innovations in the financial services world. This week, for example, SWIFT released its first AI product, saying its Payment Controls Service will “help banks detect potential fraud in real-time” using AI – with CIO Tom Zschach saying “AI is set to transform the financial services industry... we are just getting started.”)
The FCA made its Digital Sandbox permanent in August 2023. Users get access to over 200 synthetic, public or anonymised data sets and over 1000 APIs to enable testing and validation of technology solutions.
Companies in the banking, investment, lending, payments, insurance, pension, wholesale buy-side, wholesale sell-side and others can all apply.
