The FCA has published a speech given by Christopher Woolard (Director of Strategy and Competition at the FCA). The speech is entitled The FCA’s role in promoting innovation.

Key points in the speech include:

• the Project Innovate has assisted over 300 firms;
• interest in the FCA’s Regulatory Sandbox has been high. Of 69 applications, the regulator has accepted 24 to develop towards testing and all come from a wide range of sectors including retail banking, insurance, advice and profiling and IPO;
• the Advice Unit has approved nine applications. The successful firms have begun the process of engaging with the Advice Unit, who will seek to provide regulatory feedback on the automated advice models they are developing;
• the FCA will share publicly what it has learnt from the Advice Unit’s interactions with firms, in order to give greater clarity to the industry on how to take an automated advice model forward. The FCA will begin to publish these resources on the FCA website for all firms developing automated advice models in early 2017; and
• the FCA is planning to hold a second TechSprint event later this year on the theme of ‘unlocking regulatory reporting’.

View The FCA’s role in promoting innovation, 22 September 2016