Ep226 – FCA Policy Director David Geale on the Thought Behind the Regulatory Sandbox

In this episode

The  Financial Conduct Authority’s progressive regulatory policies have been credited with helping to make London one of the world’s finest FinTech centres. In episode 126 of FinTech Insider, we spoke with several participants of the FCA’s regulatory sandbox, created as a ‘safe space’ for startups and companies to test ideas before becoming fully regulated. In this episode, we interview FCA Policy Director David Geale on the thought behind the sandbox, and more. Enjoy the show!

“The sandbox is there for firms who really need to test in a live environment,” David says. “The example I often give is around disclosure. If I actually present something to you and say, ‘This is the current disclosure, here’s a new version, which one of these do you prefer? Which one of these do you understand?’ well, to a degree, that’s cheating. It’s better than nothing in terms of testing, but you’ve cheated, because you’ve got people to read it in the first place, and that’s generally the core challenge, is getting people to engage, getting people to read. So if you can test that in a live environment, and say, ‘Okay, we know what you would have had, now what’s the difference in actual behaviour with this new form,’ or new style, maybe digital disclosure, for example, you can actually really see the impact of the results.”

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