Last February 18, the so-called Sandbox was approved by the Council of Ministers. The bill for the Digital Transformation of the Financial Sector (including the creation of the Sandbox) went to the Courts for processing. Thus, Fintech companies (financial technology) will have a controlled legal framework to test their innovations.

The Spanish Sandbox will approve projects in the finance, insurance and capital markets sectors. With this, the Spanish Association of Fintech and Insurtech (AEFI) has estimated the creation of 4,000-5,000 jobs with Sandbox, as well as the mobilization of an investment of more than 1 billion euros.

Fintech companies will confirm the legality of their services or products, with regulatory questions, in the Sandbox. On the other hand, the authorities will be able to speed up proper regulation without the legal umbrella for launching innovations. Therefore, the implementation of the Sandbox in the Secretariat of the General Treasury is planned. To this supervision will be added the General Directorate of Insurance, the National Securities Market Commission and the Bank of Spain.

However, there are doubts about the creation of a budget supply that is sufficient for its operation. The efficiency of the sandbox will depend on the number of its employees. There are three people in the British space overseeing each project.

Sandbox

Fans of computer and cybersecurity have probably heard about a widely used technique for protecting against non-malware attack systems. That’s Sandboxing.

Computers have had to develop different tactics to deal with cybercriminals. As these have found new avenues of attack, white-hat hackers working to protect the privacy and security of systems have been forced to create more effective techniques, such as Sandbox.

The term sandbox or Sandboxing, as its word implies, refers to a “sandbox” or a controlled environment. In heritage boxes, for example, parents let their children play with their toys. They are safe places where they protect their remains from shocks and can be diverted from external hazards.

Based on this concept, cybersecurity experts thought that a good way to protect machines from viruses was to isolate them in a “legacy box,” that is, to isolate a program infected with a computer virus from the rest of the system to prevent the virus from spreading. This is known as Sandbox technology.

Feasible products

Products and services that can make the leap to the market will go to the sandbox. They don’t because of the legal doubts they raise. "Projects that do not have legal guarantees must be shown in the established legal framework. They would not be able to receive a capital investment with the security of a traditional project," says Carmelo Portero, Ibercaja's Principal of Payment and Insurance Solutions.

Projects that come out of the sandbox could become regulated (exception) or unregulated (no link). “The goal of entering a project in the Sandbox is to work in the market by obtaining a permit or license. To this end, a number of regulatory exit tests have been set up, ”adds Carmelo Portero.