Monetary Authority of Singapore publishes ‘regulatory sandbox’ guidelines for fintech

The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) has issued its ‘regulatory sandbox’ guidelines for fintech, in order to encourage and allow experimentation of solutions that utilize technology innovatively to deliver financial products or services.

The regulatory sandbox guidelines is framed by incorporating feedbacks from the public consultation as well as learning points from actual sandbox applications. It aims to enhance the clarity, flexibility, and transparency of the regulatory sandbox, the official release mentioned.

“Emerging financial products or services that utilise FinTech are becoming more sophisticated. The guidelines reflect MAS’ commitment to building a smart financial centre where innovation is pervasive and technology is used widely. The regulatory sandbox provides a conducive environment where regulatory requirements will be relaxed to enable firms to experiment with promising innovations within boundaries,” Jacqueline Loh, Deputy Managing Director of MAS, said.

The guidelines provide improved clarity by including examples and elaborations to illustrate MAS’ expectations on the sandbox, like the evaluation criteria for entry into the sandbox. It will also allow greater flexibility for firms looking to enter a sandbox, and allowing room for adjustments during experimentation as firms learn from market responses.

The fintech regulatory sandbox guidelines will demonstrate increased transparency by working closely with sandbox applicants in the evaluation and experimentation process. MAS will soon be publishing the relevant information of approved sandbox applications.