Each record describes something a country built that the indicators do not capture. The source provides the published number; the mechanism is our interpretation.
Scores describe outcomes. These records describe how a country acted, what it needed and what happened. 742 of 742 records include a mechanism. They do not affect scores.
The United Kingdom's financial regulator built the first regulatory sandbox in 2016, and by the end of 2022 had accepted 168 firms and products to test with real customers under supervision.
The regulator wrote a bounded testing regime: a firm without full authorisation can trial a product on real customers for a fixed period, with disclosure requirements and an exit plan, while the regulator watches from inside.
Preconditions
A single conduct regulator with statutory room to waive its own rules
A fintech sector dense enough to fill cohorts
Political cover for a regulator explicitly helping firms it will later police
Where else it has been used: The sandbox is Britain's most copied regulatory export, and several dozen jurisdictions now run one. Most copies keep the name and drop the supervisory intensity that makes it work.
Limits: The count is the regulator reporting on its own programme, and acceptance is not success: the FCA does not publish how many tests led to authorisation, funding or a product that survived. One hundred and sixty-eight firms over seven years is small next to the sector, so the number evidences that the mechanism runs, not that it moves the industry.
๐ฎ๐ฑIsraelsince 1993delivered and closedbears on Venture deals
Israel put 100 million dollars of public money into ten hybrid venture funds from 1993, with foreign partners and a buy-out option, and by 2002 the country had 131 venture funds with around 10 billion dollars under management.
The state capitalised new private funds rather than picking companies, required each fund to bring a foreign venture firm as partner, and sold the government's stake cheaply to the private partners once a fund worked, so the subsidy was the upside, and it expired by design.
Preconditions
A stock of investable technology and founders already present
Foreign venture firms willing to teach the craft for cheap equity
A government able to exit a working programme instead of scaling it
Where else it has been used: Yozma is the most copied venture policy in the world, and most copies fail on the same two points: no credible foreign-partner requirement, and no willingness to sell the state's stake at the moment of success.
Limits: Attribution is the weak joint: the ten funds were one cause among several, alongside a million-person skilled immigration wave, military technology spillovers and a US stock market that wanted Israeli listings, and the OECD paper credits Yozma as catalyst rather than cause. The 10 billion figure is capital under management, not investment made or returns earned, and roughly 70 percent of it was foreign money. The programme was deliberately closed once private capital led, which is why the status is concluded.
๐ฐ๐ทSouth Koreasince 2019still operatingbears on Firms through regulatory sandboxes
South Korea expanded its regulatory-sandbox system from ICT and industrial-convergence fields in January 2019 to eight sectoral regimes by 2024, adding finance, regulatory-free zones, smart cities, R&D zones, mobility and circular economy testing.
South Korea created a common regulatory-sandbox architecture with temporary permits, demonstration exemptions and rapid regulatory confirmation, then added sector-specific tracks and dedicated support bodies so smaller firms could test products without negotiating every rule from scratch.
Preconditions
A legal framework that allows time-, place- and scale-limited exemptions while retaining safety controls
Specialist ministries and intake bodies able to assess experiments across finance, mobility, ICT and industrial sectors
A route from a successful test to regulatory revision, licensing or procurement rather than leaving pilots stranded
Where else it has been used: Sandbox systems travel when experimentation, safeguards and rule-change pathways are designed together; multiplying sector labels without review capacity creates a catalogue rather than a learning system.
Limits: The regime count shows institutional breadth, not the number of firms approved, experiments completed, commercial products launched, safety outcomes or permanent rule changes. The government portal describes the system's design and expansion but does not independently evaluate whether each sectoral track is active at the same intensity or produces net social benefit.
๐ธ๐ฌSingaporesince 2016still operatingbears on Firms through regulatory sandboxes
Singapore's Monetary Authority operates three FinTech Regulatory Sandbox variantsโSandbox, Sandbox Express and Sandbox Plusโgiving firms distinct routes to test regulated products with real customers under defined safeguards.
MAS made experimentation a staged regulatory service: firms needing tailored controls use the original sandbox, lower-risk activities can use Sandbox Express, and promising proposals can receive a streamlined route with support. Each variant keeps a live test bounded while giving the regulator evidence before a full licence.
Preconditions
A financial regulator with authority to vary requirements temporarily and monitor live customer activity
Clear entry, boundary and exit criteria so a sandbox does not become indefinite unlicensed operation
A dense financial and technology ecosystem in which tested products can find counterparties, capital and a path to licensing
Where else it has been used: Regulatory sandboxes travel best as a portfolio matched to risk: one universal process can be too slow for low-risk tests and too loose for products that move real money.
Limits: Counting three sandbox routes shows regulatory design and breadth, not applications received, firms graduating to full licences, customer protection, failure rates or the cost of supervision. The EDB account is an official ecosystem description and includes illustrative company cases rather than an independent evaluation of all experiments.
The British Business Bank reported that government-owned British Patient Capital had committed ยฃ2.287 billion through 80 fund commitments, 10 co-investments and 18 Future Fund deals by 31 March 2024, with an underlying portfolio of 1,350 companies.
The UK used a public, long-horizon investment platform to anchor private funds, make selected co-investments and keep capital flowing into innovative companies that can be underserved by shorter-horizon finance. A fund-manager network spreads sourcing and specialist judgement beyond the state balance sheet.
Preconditions
A public investment institution with a mandate, capital and governance that can tolerate long time horizons
Private fund managers and co-investors able to select, price and support high-growth firms
A pipeline of investable companies and follow-on capital so an anchor commitment can compound rather than stand alone
Where else it has been used: Public venture catalysts travel when they crowd in capable private managers and preserve commercial decision-making; a state fund without deal flow, follow-on finance or disciplined governance can become a subsidy ledger rather than a capital market.
Limits: Commitments, assets and portfolio-company counts are administrative programme totals, not venture capital as a share of GDP, additionality, exits, jobs or causal economic impact. The portfolio includes third-party fund capital and co-investments, and the figures are reported by the government-owned delivery institution rather than independently evaluating what would have happened without it.
UK Research and Innovation's ICURe impact report says spinout companies from the programme secured ยฃ326 million in investment funding and created more than 1,400 jobs from 2014 onward, after research teams were trained and funded to test markets before deciding whether to spin out.
ICURe gives research teams funding, coaching and a disciplined market-discovery period in which they conduct more than 100 customer interviews before a university-backed go/no-go decision. Teams advised to spin out can then apply for follow-on funding, turning technology-transfer work into an investable proposition rather than treating a patent as a company.
Preconditions
Universities and research institutes with discoveries, translational staff and authority to support commercial routes
Researchers willing to test a problem with users and founders able to lead a company after the discovery phase
Follow-on grants, investors and technology-transfer offices that can carry a validated opportunity beyond the programme
Where else it has been used: Spinout pipelines travel when market discovery, founder formation and follow-on capital are designed as one chain; a grant or patent alone does not create the commercial capabilities and decisions needed for a durable firm.
Limits: The impact report's cumulative investment and job figures cover teams supported by ICURe and do not show the full spinout population, survival, profitability, quality of jobs, counterfactual or the programme's independent contribution. They are programme impact estimates, not a national spinout rate or a guarantee that every participating discovery should become a company.
Portugal Ventures, the public venture-capital company in the Banco Portuguรชs de Fomento group, reports โฌ233.2 million invested in 256 new companies since 2012 and โฌ283 million under management.
A state-backed investor supplies pre-seed, seed and Series A capital, often alongside private investors, using staged minority investments and portfolio support to bridge companies that are too early for ordinary bank finance.
Preconditions
A pipeline of founders and research-derived firms large enough to fill investment rounds
Investment professionals with authority to make commercial decisions inside a public mandate
Follow-on private capital and exit markets so public money can recycle rather than become permanent subsidy
Where else it has been used: Public venture capital travels when it crowds in follow-on investors and accepts portfolio risk transparently; a state fund that only replaces missing private money can preserve firms without building a market.
Limits: These are company-reported cumulative portfolio figures, not venture-capital investment as a share of GDP, additionality, exits, survival, jobs or a counterfactual. The homepage does not give a full reference-year methodology, and the totals can include private co-investment effects as well as Portugal Ventures' own capital.
๐ต๐นPortugalsince 2022still operatingbears on Firms through regulatory sandboxes
ANI's National Innovation Report records 47 recognised Portuguese test beds and โฌ150 million allocated to the national network for developing and testing new products and services at technology-readiness levels 5 to 9.
Portugal funded and recognised shared facilities where SMEs and startups can develop and test near-market products, lowering the cost of moving an experiment from prototype toward demonstration without requiring every firm to build its own laboratory.
Preconditions
Facilities with technical staff, equipment and safety procedures that can host external firms
A recognition and funding process that makes test results credible to customers and investors
A pipeline of SMEs and startups with products mature enough to test at TRL 5 to 9
Where else it has been used: Test-bed networks travel when access, measurement and procurement pathways connect a facility to real adopters; a list of subsidised facilities without utilisation data can become an infrastructure inventory rather than an experimentation capability.
Limits: The count and allocation show a national experimentation infrastructure, not the number of live trials, firms served, products commercialised or regulatory changes that resulted. ANI's report says 47 were recognised at publication but gives no common utilisation definition, and the โฌ150 million is an allocation rather than completed spending or additional private investment.
๐ต๐นPortugalsince 2021still operatingbears on Firms through regulatory sandboxes
ANI's National Innovation Report records four Portuguese Zonas Livres Tecnolรณgicas (technological free zones) by the end of 2024, where innovators can test technology-based processes in real or near-real environments under continuous regulator supervision.
Portugal created a legal route for regulators and innovators to run controlled tests in defined physical environments, using supervised evidence from those tests to clarify or adapt rules where existing law is uncertain.
Preconditions
Regulators willing to supervise experiments while protecting safety and public rights
A legal framework that permits controlled derogations or clarifications without suspending accountability
Test environments with monitoring, reporting and a route to ordinary market authorisation
Where else it has been used: Regulatory sandboxes travel when the evidence gathered in a zone can change a rule or unlock a normal licence; a protected pilot site with no route out simply postpones the regulatory decision.
Limits: Four zones are an institutional count, not a measure of trials, firms admitted, time to authorisation or successful regulatory adaptation. ANI's report uses a 31 December 2024 cutoff and does not provide a common utilisation or outcome series, so the record shows that a sandbox channel exists rather than that it is broad or effective.
๐ง๐ทBrazilsince 2021delivered and closedbears on Firms through regulatory sandboxes
Brazil's central bank opened its regulatory sandbox to applications in February 2021, received 52 projects, admitted seven to test under relaxed rules from 6 December 2021, and ran the cycle for one year with one permitted extension.
The National Monetary Council and the central bank set a joint sandbox rule in 2020, and a standing committee of seven department heads screened applications by cycle, admitting only projects that needed a specific rule relaxed to be tested.
Preconditions
A central bank that already runs the payment rails it is willing to test against, as Pix shows
A legal basis that lets the regulator waive its own rules for a limited period
Enough supervisory staff to take on a cycle of bespoke oversight
Where else it has been used: The design follows the UK model of time-bound cohorts. Brazil kept the cohort small and the entry test strict, which limits both the risk and the reach.
Limits: The central bank is reporting on its own programme. Seven admissions out of 52 shows a selective regime, not a broad one: the report records that the bank found 24 projects not innovative enough or not needing any rule relief, judged five outside its remit, and disqualified 16 more. The report covers the first cycle only and says nothing about what the seven tests changed in regulation or which products reached the market. No second cycle appears in the bank's published sandbox documents as of the retrieval date, so the status is concluded on that absence, not on a closing statement. The securities regulator CVM runs a separate sandbox that this record does not count. The source is a PDF and the counts are on page 11.
๐ฎ๐ณIndiasince 2020still operatingbears on Firms through regulatory sandboxes
The Reserve Bank of India ran four themed sandbox cohorts between 2020 and 2024, retail payments, cross-border payments, MSME lending and fraud prevention, admitting 28 entities to test and finding 13 products viable in the three cohorts whose exits it published, and keeps the cohorts open on tap.
The RBI published an enabling framework in 2019 and ran the sandbox as themed cohorts, each opened on one policy problem, so the regulator chose the questions and firms competed to answer them; a closed cohort reopens on tap.
Preconditions
A central bank that sets policy for a fast-growing digital payments system it also oversees
Willingness to publish names of admitted entities and test outcomes
A pipeline of startups and incumbents with products held back by a specific rule
Where else it has been used: Themed cohorts are the RBI's variation on the UK model. The theme concentrates supervisory attention but caps volume, which is why the counts stay in single digits per cohort.
Limits: Both numbers are computed from four RBI press releases, not stated in one: six entities admitted and six viable in the first cohort (13 September 2021), eight and four in the second (19 July 2022), eight admitted to the third (6 June 2022) and six admitted with three viable in the fourth (18 June 2024). The third cohort's exit result was not found, so the viable count leaves it out. The regulator is reporting on its own programme, and viable within the boundary conditions of a test is not adoption: the releases say only that regulated entities may consider the products. Twenty-eight entities over four years is small next to India's payments sector, so the record evidences that a working sandbox exists, not that it shaped the market.
๐ฐ๐ชKenyasince 2019still operatingbears on Firms through regulatory sandboxes
Kenya's Capital Markets Authority opened a regulatory sandbox under a 2019 policy guidance note and by January 2024 had let 11 firms exit it after live testing, with new admissions continuing into January 2025.
The Capital Markets Authority issued a policy guidance note that let fintech firms and incumbents test capital markets products with real customers under relaxed rules, then used each exit as the moment to grant a licence or approval under the Capital Markets Act.
Preconditions
A regulator with statutory power to grant no-objections and tailored approvals
A domestic fintech sector already built on mobile money rails
Peer regulators abroad, through the Global Financial Innovation Network, to copy procedures from
Limits: This is one regulator's sandbox for capital markets products only. It says nothing about the Central Bank of Kenya, the Communications Authority or any other regulator, so it covers little of the breadth the indicator asks for. The count is the regulator's own, taken from a press release, and the CMA publishes no running register. The 11 exits are cumulative over almost five years, a small number that says nothing about what the exiting products did in the market. 'Successful exit' is the CMA's own description. The figure is from January 2024, and no later official total was found.
๐ณ๐ฌNigeriasince 2023still operatingbears on Firms through regulatory sandboxes
Nigeria's Securities and Exchange Commission opened a one-year Regulatory Incubation sandbox in September 2023 and had admitted seven firms across cohorts 001/23 and 002/24 to test capital-market products, then cleared seven more entities into its Accelerated Regulatory Incubation Programme in July 2026.
The SEC created a time-limited sandbox with conditional rule waivers and a year-long test period, then added an accelerated track to pull digital-asset firms that were operating informally into supervised testing.
Preconditions
A regulator with statutory room to grant conditional waivers, here strengthened by the Investments and Securities Act 2025
A pipeline of fintech and digital-asset firms already serving Nigerian users outside the rules
Supervisory staff able to review participants and decide graduation or wind-down
Where else it has been used: Built on the FCA sandbox template; Nigeria's variant adds an accelerated track aimed at bringing crypto exchanges and tokenisation platforms already in the market under supervision, rather than only testing new products.
Limits: The count of seven is ours, read off the directory table as retrieved on 2026-10-01, which carries no publication date and may not be current; the SEC publishes no summary statistic, application count, graduation rate or outcome for any participant. Three of the seven RI firms (Trovotech, Wrapped CBDC, Blockvault) reappear among the seven ARIP admissions of July 2026, so the two metrics overlap and must not be added, and an ARIP Approval-in-Principle is by the SEC's own wording not a final licence. This is one regulator's sandbox in one sector: the Central Bank of Nigeria's separate sandbox framework is not counted, and the record says nothing about whether testing changed any rule.
The Financial Services Regulatory Authority of Abu Dhabi Global Market opened its RegLab fintech sandbox to applications on 2 November 2016 and by August 2019 had admitted 32 firms from 83 applications from 20 countries, of which two had graduated to the live market.
The FSRA wrote a separate, time-limited authorisation category into its rulebook that let fintech firms test with real customers under tailored limits for up to two years, then admitted them in cohorts and moved the successful ones to full licences.
Preconditions
A financial free zone with its own common-law regulator able to change rules quickly
A federal state that tolerates several competing financial regulators and sandboxes
International fintech firms looking for a regional base
Where else it has been used: The design follows the UK FCA sandbox closely. In the UAE it was followed by the DFSA in Dubai and by the federal RegLab launched in January 2019 with the Dubai Future Foundation, so the country now runs several parallel sandboxes instead of one.
Limits: The count is the regulator announcing its own programme in a press release, and it dates from August 2019: no later cumulative total was found at an ADGM URL, so the record says nothing about the sandbox's size today. ADGM is a financial free zone in Abu Dhabi with its own regulator, so this is one jurisdiction's sandbox, not a federal regime. The UAE government portal (https://u.ae/en/about-the-uae/digital-uae/regulatory-framework/regulatory-sandboxes-in-the-uae) lists at least five others, including the federal RegLab launched in January 2019 with the Dubai Future Foundation and the DFSA's Innovation Testing Licence, and no official count of firms across all of them exists. Admissions measure regulatory openness, not whether tested products reached customers safely: two graduates out of 32 admitted by 2019 is a thin outcome, and the release does not say how many firms left without a licence.
๐ฎ๐ฉIndonesiasince 2018still operatingbears on Firms through regulatory sandboxes
Indonesia's Financial Services Authority (OJK), running a regulatory sandbox since 2018 and under POJK 3/2024 since February 2024, had received 26 applications and approved 9 sandbox participants by December 2025, four of which had completed testing and been declared passed.
OJK wrote the sandbox into binding regulation, first in 2018 and again in 2024 when it took over crypto and digital-asset supervision, and used graduation from the sandbox to open a registration route for whole business models rather than for one firm.
Preconditions
A financial regulator with a statutory mandate over the new activity, here extended to crypto assets by the 2023 financial-sector law
Staff able to supervise live trials and write graduation decisions that set precedent
A pipeline of firms willing to test under supervision instead of operating offshore
Where else it has been used: Regulatory sandboxes spread from the UK FCA's 2016 model; Indonesia's version shows the sandbox being reused as the entry gate when a regulator inherits a new sector.
Limits: The count of 9 covers only the regime under POJK 3/2024, so it omits every participant tested under the 2018 regulation, and the press release gives no cumulative total since 2018. The regulator reports on its own sandbox. The release's own breakdown names 4 in testing and 4 passed, which sums to 8, so one approved participant is unaccounted for in the text. The cohort is concentrated in digital financial assets and crypto (tokenised gold, tokenised bonds, tokenised property), so breadth across financial activities is narrow. A sandbox count shows that trials run, not that rules changed because of them, although the release does say that business models matching a passed participant may register without a trial. Bank Indonesia runs a separate payments sandbox that is not counted here. The OJK site rejects requests that do not send browser-like headers (a plain curl returned 'Request Rejected'), so automated URL checks may flag it.
๐ฒ๐พMalaysiasince 2016still operatingbears on Firms through regulatory sandboxes
Bank Negara Malaysia has operated a fintech regulatory sandbox since October 2016 and added an accelerated Green Lane for financial institutions in February 2024; as of June 2026 it reported 139 Standard and Green Lane applications submitted to date and five solutions in live testing.
Bank Negara Malaysia published a sandbox framework that lets fintech firms test regulated financial services live under tailored conditions, then added a faster Green Lane so incumbents with a strong risk-management record can test with lighter procedures.
Preconditions
A single integrated prudential and conduct regulator for banking, insurance and payments that can grant case-by-case flexibility
Legal powers to vary requirements for a defined test without amending statute
Supervisory staff able to assess and monitor novel business models one by one
Where else it has been used: BNM launched in the same year as Singapore's and after the UK's, and its 2024 Green Lane revision follows the wider move from start-up sandboxes toward faster testing tracks for incumbents.
Limits: The page is the regulator reporting on its own programme, as a live dashboard with no archived history, so the figures can change without notice and earlier values cannot be checked. 139 counts applications (the page also calls them applicants), not admissions: BNM publishes no count of participants admitted or graduated, so the share rejected, withdrawn or still in assessment is unknown. The same page's table of solutions currently in the sandbox lists six firms (one dating from June 2022) against the counter's five, so the live-test count is itself inconsistent on the source page. Five live tests after almost ten years is a small number, and the count says nothing about whether tested products reached the market or led to rule changes. It covers one regulator's sandbox; other Malaysian regulators' sandboxes are not counted here.
๐น๐ญThailandsince 2016still operatingbears on Firms through regulatory sandboxes
The Bank of Thailand, which opened a fintech regulatory sandbox in late 2016, listed 10 sandbox project tracks as of April 2026, whose participant counts sum to 90, from QR payment (14) and biometrics (19) to letters of guarantee (18), the National Digital ID (12) and programmable payment.
10 sandbox project tracks, project tracks listed under the bank of thailand regulatory sandbox, 2026-04. 90 participants, participants summed across the listed sandbox project tracks, 2026-04. Bank of Thailand, Regulatory Sandbox page, retrieved 2026-10-01.
The move, and what it needed
The Bank of Thailand let banks, fintechs and technology providers test payment, identity and lending services under limited scope and temporary relief, then wrote what worked into rules.
Preconditions
A central bank with legal room to grant temporary, conditional relief and to supervise tests closely
Incumbent banks willing to test shared standards inside the sandbox rather than lobby against them
A path from a successful test to a licence or a published standard, so the sandbox is not a holding pen
Where else it has been used: Sandboxes spread across ASEAN after 2016; Thailand's variant is notable for running thematic tracks (QR, biometrics, digital ID).
Limits: The count is the regulator's own listing on a web page rendered from its CMS, not an audited statistic, and the page does not say whether the participants are live today or cumulative since each track opened: the linked P2P list includes firms that exited or discontinued (one discontinued in 2022, one in 2023), so 90 is likely cumulative, not live. The total of 90 is computed by summing the table. A track is the Bank's own grouping, so 10 tracks is not comparable to a count of sandbox regimes elsewhere. The figures show breadth of testing, not how many tests became licensed products, what was learned, or whether consumers were protected; the started year rests on a Bank of Thailand research note, not the 2016 guideline itself. Other Thai regulators' sandboxes are not counted here.
๐ช๐ธSpainsince 2021operating below its peakbears on Firms through regulatory sandboxes
Spain's Treasury ran a national financial regulatory sandbox under Law 7/2020 from 2021. Its first cohort drew 66 applications, 12 of which entered testing. By 2025 demand had fallen to two applications across the ninth and tenth cohorts, one of which received a favourable assessment, and the Government approved a draft law (Anteproyecto, 17 December 2024) that replaces closed cohorts with year-round intake and cuts pre-assessment to 45 working days.
The Treasury built a cohort-based sandbox in which the Bank of Spain, the securities regulator CNMV and the insurance supervisor DGSFP assessed and monitored tests under one statute, then fed the conclusions back into legislation. Demand collapsed once the first cohort's backlog cleared, and the Government answered with a draft law for year-round intake and a shorter pre-assessment.
Preconditions
A statute that lets supervisors grant time-limited testing protocols without licensing
Supervisors with staff to assess applications and write public conclusions for each test
A steady supply of firms whose innovation is blocked by a specific rule, rather than one-off pent-up demand
Where else it has been used: The UK FCA's sandbox model was copied widely after 2016. Spain's cohort data show the common afterlife of such regimes: an opening surge, then thin demand once EU-level regimes and innovation hubs offer cheaper routes.
Limits: Applications measure demand for the regime. They do not measure the regime's regulatory value, and the Treasury reports its own programme. The first cohort's surge was partly pent-up demand from the two-year legislative delay before Law 7/2020, so 66 is an unusual peak and not a steady state. Some of the later fall may reflect substitutes rather than lost capability: the EU DLT Pilot Regime, MiCA, the Bank of Spain's innovation hub and new Spanish sandboxes such as the AI pilot under RD 817/2023, Eco-Lab and the mobility sandbox. Spain opened further sandboxes (AI pilot, Eco-Lab, mobility) modelled on this one. The same report counts 117 applications over ten cohorts, four projects fully in the market and three legal changes traced to tests: Law 6/2023 on DLT securities and fund units, and RD 668/2023 on pension contributions. Read as one regime, the decline is real. Read as Spain's whole sandbox capacity, it overstates erosion. Every figure is a PDF read and there is no machine-readable series. The cohort chart in section 1.1 gives per-cohort counts only as unlabelled values, so the record uses the two figures stated in prose.
๐ฟ๐ฆSouth Africasince 2020still operatingbears on Firms through regulatory sandboxes
South Africa's Intergovernmental Fintech Working Group, a joint body of the financial regulators, opened a cross-regulator sandbox in April 2020 that took 54 unique applications and admitted nine sandbox tests from eight firms in its first cohort, then moved to a rolling intake.
The Reserve Bank, the FSCA and other financial regulators ran one sandbox through a joint working group, so an innovator whose product crossed mandates such as crypto cross-border payments was tested by every relevant regulator at once.
Preconditions
Regulators willing to share one intake and one set of case managers across mandates
Enough supervisory staff to assess applications; the report says the volume of applications strained capacity
An Innovation Hub with a guidance unit to absorb the many applicants who do not need a sandbox
Where else it has been used: The IFWG moved from a cohort-based window to an adjusted rolling-based approach after its first round.
Limits: Nine tests is a small count, and the source is the regulators reporting on their own sandbox. The report does not show that any rule changed because of a test: it says two tests confirmed compliance with existing rules and seven produced insights for possible future frameworks. The 'operating' status rests on the October 2022 statement that the IFWG voted to move to a rolling intake. No official page that opened on the retrieval date counted participants after the first cohort, and the IFWG's own site (ifwg.co.za) did not respond to scripted requests. The sandbox covers financial services only, so it shows nothing about controlled trial regimes in other sectors. The figures are in a PDF.
๐ฏ๐ตJapansince 2018still operatingbears on Firms through regulatory sandboxes
Japan's cross-government regulatory sandbox, created in 2018 under the Productivity Improvement Act and made permanent in 2021 under the Industrial Competitiveness Enhancement Act, had approved 33 demonstration plans involving 152 businesses by 19 March 2025, across mobility, IoT, fintech and healthcare.
The Cabinet Secretariat opened one government-wide window where a firm can propose a time- and participant-limited trial, and the minister responsible for each affected law approves it after checking with an expert committee, so ministries must answer within fixed timelines and use the trial data to review the rule.
Preconditions
A cabinet-level secretariat with authority to route a proposal to every regulating ministry
A statute that lets ministers approve trials without first amending the underlying law
Firms willing to publish trial plans and results for the data to inform rule changes
Where else it has been used: Built on the UK FCA's fintech sandbox but widened from one regulator to all ministries; Korea's 2019 regulatory sandbox took the cross-sector form further and reports far higher approval counts.
Limits: The count comes from the sandbox's own secretariat in a promotional briefing, not a statistics release. Thirty-three plans over more than six years is about five a year, a modest rate for an economy of Japan's size, and the count says nothing about how many trials led to a permanent rule change; the annex lists some special measures (for example a 2020 insurance-law exception for P2P insurance) but the briefing gives no total of rules amended. A plan is counted at approval, not completion, and several approved plans are small single-firm demonstrations. The briefing's annex dates each approval: 19 of the 33 plans were approved by October 2020, and about three a year since, with one in 2024, so the scheme's use slowed sharply after its first two years. Japan runs other experimentation regimes (national strategic special zones, the grey-zone resolution system, the FSA fintech hub) that are not in this count, so it understates sandbox-type activity as the construct defines it while also overstating it as evidence of reform.
๐บ๐ธUnited Statessince 2019dismantledbears on Firms through regulatory sandboxes
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau opened a national Compliance Assistance Sandbox in September 2019, issued two sandbox approval orders in December 2020, terminated one of them in June 2022 and rescinded the policy with effect from 30 September 2022; a reissued version of January 2025 was withdrawn in May 2025.
A federal consumer-finance regulator offered firms a statutory safe harbour and a written approval that a described product complied with named laws, in exchange for sharing data during the test. A later leadership judged that the policies did not advance innovation and lacked transparency, let the information-collection authority lapse and rescinded the policy.
Preconditions
Statutory safe-harbour provisions the agency could invoke for good-faith reliance on its approval
Leadership continuity across administrations, which this sandbox did not have
Guardrails stopping a firm from marketing an approval as an endorsement
Where else it has been used: Sandboxes that rest on an agency policy statement rather than a statute can be switched off by the next director; the CFPB's was rescinded, reissued and withdrawn within three years.
Limits: The count of two is ours, made by counting the approval orders the CFPB lists as granted (Payactiv and Synchrony Bank); the page also lists one template (Build Commonwealth) and separate No-Action Letters and Trial Disclosure waivers, which are not counted here. The rescission and the 2025 withdrawal are read from Federal Register notices on govinfo.gov (87 FR 58439, 90 FR 1974 and 90 FR 20086), not from the cited page. The CFPB page is blocked to some automated clients. Two approvals over three years is evidence that the federal consumer-finance sandbox barely operated before it was ended, not that it failed on its merits: the Bureau's stated reasons were that the policies did not advance consumer-beneficial innovation and failed to meet standards for transparency and stakeholder participation. State sandboxes (Arizona, Utah and others) are subnational and are not counted.
๐จ๐ฆCanadasince 2016delivered and closedbears on Firms through regulatory sandboxes
Canada's provincial securities regulators, acting jointly as the Canadian Securities Administrators, authorised 13 firms through the CSA Regulatory Sandbox between 2016 and 2021, before it was succeeded by the CSA Financial Innovation Hub and its decision list stopped being updated in December 2023.
Thirteen provincial and territorial securities regulators agreed to process fintech registrations and exemptive relief faster and on a time-limited basis through a shared sandbox, then folded it into a broader innovation hub once crypto platforms moved to their own registration track.
Preconditions
A passport-style system letting one principal regulator's decision apply across provinces
A wave of novel business models (crypto funds, token offerings) that did not fit existing categories
Regulators willing to publish each decision so the sandbox could be audited
Where else it has been used: Canada shows a sandbox absorbed once its main user group gets a dedicated rulebook: the crypto platforms that filled it moved to a pre-registration undertaking regime.
Limits: The 13 is ours, counted from the firms the page lists under 'Former CSA Regulatory Sandbox'; the crypto trading platform decisions on the same page belong to a separate pre-registration process and are not counted. Most authorisations were crypto funds and token offerings from 2017 to 2019, and the page says nothing about outcomes. The sandbox was succeeded by the CSA Financial Innovation Hub, whose page lists research, workshops and 'testing environments' among possible activities, so the testing function may not be wholly gone; what ended is the named regime and its public register, which is why the record is concluded rather than dismantled. The earliest listed decision (AngelList, October 2016) predates the sandbox's 2017 start and is listed under it by the CSA. The site sits behind a JavaScript challenge that blocks simple scripted fetches.
๐ฆ๐บAustraliasince 2020still operatingbears on Firms through regulatory sandboxes
Australia's government introduced the enhanced regulatory sandbox on 1 September 2020, letting firms test financial services and credit activities for up to 24 months without a licence, and ASIC's register lists 23 users, four current and 19 past.
Parliament and Treasury put a licensing exemption into regulation, so an eligible firm can notify ASIC and start testing within set client and exposure limits, rather than applying for case-by-case relief.
Preconditions
A statutory power to exempt from the licensing regime by regulation
Hard caps on clients and exposure so a notification regime stays safe without vetting
A public register so customers can check that a firm is a sandbox user
Where else it has been used: Australia moved from a regulator-run sandbox to a legislated notification exemption; low take-up suggests automatic entry does not by itself create demand.
Limits: The 23 is ours, counted from the two expandable lists ('Current users' 4, 'Past users' 19) on the day of retrieval; the page carries no headline total or reference date, and the lists change as exemptions start and lapse. Users notify ASIC rather than being selected, so the count measures take-up of an exemption, not supervised trials, and the page does not say how many past users went on to obtain a licence or simply stopped. Twenty-three users in six years is small for Australia's financial sector. ASIC's earlier sandbox, which the ERS superseded, is not counted.
๐ฉ๐ชGermanysince 2017delivered and closedbears on Firms through regulatory sandboxes
Germany's federal government ran a time-limited regulatory experimentation clause for the SINTEG smart-energy showcases from June 2017 to June 2022, under which the Federal Network Agency received 49 notifications of experiments but only two claims for compensation of regulatory costs.
The federal government wrote a time-boxed ordinance letting showcase participants trial flexible grid use and be compensated afterwards for network charges and levies they would otherwise have lost, with the network regulator verifying each claim.
Preconditions
A large funded demonstration programme to supply the experimenters
A regulator able to verify claims against network operators
State-aid clearance from the European Commission for the compensation
Where else it has been used: The lesson in the report is that ex post compensation with audited claims deters use, so a clause must waive rules up front to be taken up.
Limits: Both figures are inside a PDF (pages 4 and 5). The clause was open only to participants in the five funded SINTEG showcases, not to every firm in the country. A notification is an announcement of intent, not a completed trial, and the government's own report says use of the compensation mechanism fell well short of expectations because participants had to bear losses first and faced high administrative cost. The regulation expired by design in 2022. Because its core was ex post compensation, the report says the general legal framework applied essentially unchanged to participants, apart from the ยง 5 derogation for flexibility platforms.
๐ณ๐ฑNetherlandssince 2015operating below its peakbears on Firms through regulatory sandboxes
The Dutch economy ministry let energy cooperatives and owners' associations deviate from the Electricity Act 1998 through 19 exemptions granted in four rounds between 2015 and 2018, then closed the scheme to new entrants; by 2024 only 10 of the experiments were operational.
The ministry used a decree under the Electricity Act to let local cooperatives run their own project grids and supply members for up to ten years, testing whether the full act needed to apply to local renewable generation.
Preconditions
An enabling article in the Electricity Act permitting time-limited derogations
Energy cooperatives able to carry grid-operator duties
An agency (RVO) to vet applications and monitor results
Where else it has been used: The Dutch case shows a sandbox closed to entry while a successor law was drafted; experiments outside the new law's scope must either fit it or end when their exemption expires.
Limits: Both figures are inside a PDF (section 3, page labelled 4 of 12, PDF page 5). Nineteen is the total ever granted, used as the peak because no entry was possible after 2018. It counts exemptions and the 10 counts operating experiments, so the gap mixes projects that never started with ones that stopped; the sources do not show 19 operating at once. The only same-unit loss they document is from 19 exemptions granted to 15 still held. RVO's scheme page gives a third figure, 15 current exemption holders, which counts exemptions still held rather than experiments running. The minister closed the scheme on the advice of the Raad van State pending the new Energiewet (in force 1 January 2026), so part of the fall is a planned run-down rather than failure. The experiments are small local grids, and the report itself says their number and size limit what can be concluded.
๐ซ๐ทFrancesince 2020still operatingbears on Firms through regulatory sandboxes
Under the 2019 energy and climate law, France's energy regulator CRE and the energy directorate DGEC granted temporary derogations from network access rules to 30 projects, 25 by CRE and 5 by DGEC, of which six were running and reporting indicators in May 2025 and two had been generalised into regulation in 2024.
Parliament gave the energy regulator and the ministry a power to grant time-limited derogations from network access conditions, first through application windows and since November 2022 on a rolling basis, with annual public progress reports.
Preconditions
A statutory derogation power covering named titles of the energy code
An independent regulator able to assess projects and publish follow-up
Network operators willing to host and measure non-standard arrangements
Where else it has been used: Two experiments (Enedis Reflex and an EDF project) were generalised by regulation in 2024, the route from sandbox to rule that many sandboxes lack.
Limits: The figure is inside a PDF (page 3). A derogation granted is not a trial run: the same report says only six of the 30 were in progress and producing indicators, and 14 further requests were awaiting a decision, mostly at DGEC. Progress data come from project holders and network operators. The sandbox covers network access and use in electricity and gas only, so it says nothing about experimentation elsewhere in French regulation.
๐ฎ๐นItalysince 2021operating below its peakbears on Firms through regulatory sandboxes
Italy's FinTech sandbox, run by the Bank of Italy, Consob and IVASS under the MEF's FinTech Committee, admitted 16 projects from its first application window (November 2021 to January 2022) but only 3 from its second (November to December 2023), after applications fell by about 80.7 percent.
The MEF's FinTech Committee opened timed application windows in which each supervisor admitted projects to tests of six months, extendable to at most 18 months, with tailored conditions, and demand fell once operators learned how heavy admission was and found lighter informal channels at the Bank of Italy.
Preconditions
A statutory sandbox shared across three supervisors with separate admission procedures
Lighter informal innovation channels at the central bank competing for the same applicants
Short, infrequent application windows that make the sandbox slow relative to product cycles
Limits: The counts are projects, not firms: the IVASS projects in the second window involved several firms each (for example ITAS Mutua with ANIA, Autovia and Connexa InsTech), while the one Bank of Italy project was a single FinTech operator, so the indicator's firms-per-million figure would need a firm count the report does not give. Per million people the sandbox admitted roughly 0.27 projects from the first window and 0.05 from the second; those ratios are our computation with a population the source does not state. The sandbox runs in windows rather than continuously, so the two numbers are two cohorts, not two years. The MEF attributes the fall to an admission process that operators and the supervisors themselves found burdensome and to the Bank of Italy's informal channels (Canale Fintech, Milano Hub) absorbing demand, so part of the decline is innovation dialogue moving outside the sandbox, which the indicator would not see. The Bank of Italy's sandbox page shows both cohorts as concluded and lists no window after 2023 as of retrieval; a new window or a redesigned regime would change the status. The report is the MEF reporting on a regime it chairs, and the MEF itself judges the sandbox experience 'soddisfacente' while calling for procedural simplification.
๐ฌ๐ญGhanasince 2026still operatingbears on Firms through regulatory sandboxes
The Bank of Ghana, which launched a regulatory and innovation sandbox pilot in 2021, admitted six firms into its Regulatory Sandbox for one year in January 2026 to test the exchange, custody, administration and issuance of virtual assets.
The Bank of Ghana's FinTech and Innovation Office admits named firms for a fixed one-year test under supervision, using each cohort to validate rules it has not yet issued, here for virtual assets.
Preconditions
A central bank FinTech office with staff to supervise individual tests
A legal basis to grant time-limited, conditional permission outside existing licences
A pending regulatory question concrete enough to define a cohort around
Limits: The metric is a count of six firms in one cohort, taken from a press release rather than a statistical series; divided by Ghana's population it is well under one firm per million people. It counts admissions only, not completions or exits. The 2021 launch was a pilot run with EMTECH Service LLC, not a documented admission, so the start year is the first documented admission, 2026. The indicator sums every regulator in the country, and this record covers the Bank of Ghana only. A sandbox at this scale is evidence that the instrument exists and is used, not that it operates at national scale in the sense of a mass programme.
๐ฐ๐ฟKazakhstansince 2018still operatingbears on Firms through regulatory sandboxes
The Astana Financial Services Authority granted five FinTech Lab sandbox licences in 2022, saw the first participant graduate to a full licence that year, and had 18 licensed firms in its sandbox at the end of 2022.
5 firms, fintech lab licences granted (firms admitted to the sandbox) in 2022, 2022. 18 firms, licensed companies in the fintech lab at end of year, 2022. Astana Financial Services Authority, 2022 Annual Report, retrieved 2026-10-02.
The move, and what it needed
The Astana Financial Services Authority grants individual, time-limited FinTech Lab licences with requirements tailored to each firm, and graduates a firm to full authorisation when its test succeeds.
Preconditions
A financial centre with its own regulator and rulebook separate from the national one
Demand from foreign fintech and crypto firms for a regional base
Supervisory staff able to write firm-specific requirements
Limits: The regulator is reporting on itself in an annual report, and the counts stop at 2022. Admissions plus completions in 2022 come to six firms, which is well under one per million people. AFSA regulates only the Astana International Financial Centre, a special jurisdiction under English-style common law, so the sandbox sits outside Kazakhstan's ordinary financial regulation; the indicator sums every regulator in the country, and the National Bank and the Agency for Regulation and Development of Financial Markets are not counted here. Many participants are crypto exchanges drawn by the AIFC regime, and eight licences were withdrawn in the same year five were granted, so the counts measure churn as much as successful testing. The start year is inferred from 'fifth year' rather than stated.
๐น๐ณTunisiasince 2020delivered and closedbears on Firms through regulatory sandboxes
The Banque Centrale de Tunisie launched a regulatory sandbox in January 2020, admitted four fintech solutions to its first cohort in September 2020, ran tests with real customers and partner banks for 13 months, notified exit in September 2022, and drafted a circular on digital enrolment and remote bank account opening from the results (BCT Rapport annuel 2022).
The central bank set up a fintech committee, published an access guide, selected four solutions against its own strategic priorities, exempted them from specified rules for a bounded test with partner banks, and then wrote the tested remote-onboarding practice into a banking circular.
Preconditions
A central bank with rule-making power over the banks the fintechs had to test through
Partner banks willing to embed outside firms in a protected test environment
A strategic plan that named innovation as an objective, so staff time was allocated to it
Where else it has been used: The design follows the cohort model of the UK FCA and Bahrain's central bank; what did not travel was the cadence, since Tunisia ran one cohort and stopped.
Limits: The count is the regulator's own report of its own programme. The number does not say how many of the four completed, only that exit plans were validated. Only one regulator is covered; capital markets and insurance regulators are not. Four solutions in one cohort over 2020 to 2022 is about 0.33 admissions per million people (our computation against the World Bank's 2020 population of 11,974,057), and the record shows one cohort only.
๐ฒ๐ฟMozambiquesince 2018still operatingbears on Firms through regulatory sandboxes
Banco de Moรงambique admitted 11 participants, chosen from 19 applicants, to the sixth edition of its regulatory sandbox in March 2025, and at the same ceremony gave participation certificates to the five fintechs that had completed the fifth edition.
The central bank runs its sandbox in annual editions: it opens a call, selects a cohort, runs roughly nine months of preparation, testing and reporting, and certifies the firms that finish so they can apply for a licence.
Preconditions
A sandbox regulation issued by the central bank with fixed phases and exit rules
A financial inclusion office with staff to supervise each cohort
A licensing route for payment and credit services that a graduate can apply to
Where else it has been used: The cohort model with a public certificate ceremony is the format several southern African central banks adopted later; Mozambique is among the earliest in the region, with a first cohort in 2018.
Limits: The regulator reports on its own sandbox in a news item, not in a statistical series, and the page gives one cohort only: it does not give cumulative admissions or exits across the six editions, nor how many of the 11 went on to complete testing. 'Participants' can include incumbents as well as start-ups (the five graduates named include Vodafone M-Pesa, a large mobile money operator), so the count is not a count of new firms. Completing the sandbox makes a firm eligible to apply for a licence; the page does not say how many were licensed. The 2018 start is the establishment date in the World Bank's Appendix 3 database (May 2018, five firms in the sandbox at the time), not stated on the cited page. The sandbox page (bancomoc.mz, BM Regulatory Sandbox) shows a call for an eighth edition dated September 2026 and a seventh-edition invitation dated 1 October 2025 for testing from February 2026, so the regime was running at retrieval, but neither document carries a participant count. Against a population of about 34 million, 11 admissions is about 0.3 per million people.
๐ฒ๐บMauritiussince 2018still operatingbears on Firms through regulatory sandboxes
Mauritius's Economic Development Board, operating a regulatory sandbox licence regime for innovative financial projects since September 2018 by the World Bank's dating, had nine firms in its sandbox when the World Bank compiled its global database of sandboxes in 2020.
The investment promotion board issued time-bound sandbox licences to firms proposing financial activities for which Mauritian law had no framework, on the recommendation of a national committee, before the sector regulators took on their own sandbox authorisations.
Preconditions
A statute letting a non-regulator body license activities outside existing financial law
A cross-agency committee to vet applications on behalf of several regulators
Regulators willing later to absorb the function under their own statutes
Limits: The figure is a stock of firms in the sandbox at an unstated date in 2020, compiled by the World Bank from EDB sources, not an annual count of admissions and exits, and it sits in a wide table in the plain-text version of the report (the row lists 'Operational', 9, 'Regulatory Sandbox license', established Sep-18). EDB's own annual reports do not give admissions: the 2020/21 report says only that the EDB 'registered 8 new applications for fintech RSL' and that licences were issued when positively determined, and the 2021/22, 2022/23 and 2023/24 reports read today do not mention the licence at all. A licence under the EDB regime could cover activities with no legal framework at all, so some licensees used it as a market-entry route rather than a time-limited test. Since 2021 the sandbox function has also sat with the sector regulators: the Financial Services Commission issued its first Regulatory Sandbox Authorisation under section 14B of the Financial Services Act on 30 March 2022 and reported that entity exiting after successful testing in its 2022/23 annual report, and the Bank of Mauritius issued a Guideline for Regulatory Sandbox Authorisation in May 2024 with no participant count in its 2024 annual report or December 2024 Financial Stability Report. Status operating rests on those successor regimes, not on evidence that the EDB licence itself still admits firms.
๐บ๐ฌUgandasince 2021still operatingbears on Firms through regulatory sandboxes
The Bank of Uganda reviewed five applications to its regulatory sandbox in the year to June 2025, issued deficiency letters to all of them, and reported one firm, Rexial Payment Systems Limited, exiting the sandbox after testing and applying for a payment systems operator licence.
The central bank screens sandbox applications against its framework, sends deficiency letters rather than admitting weak proposals, supervises the experiments it has admitted, and steers firms that finish testing into its licensing regime.
Preconditions
A sandbox framework issued under the central bank's payment systems law
A licence category (payment systems operator) that a graduate can move into
Supervisory staff to monitor experiments for scalability and market suitability
Limits: The bank reports on itself, in a 188-page PDF (PDF page 59). The report gives no count of firms admitted in the year: that none of the five applicants was admitted is our reading of 'Deficiency letters were issued to all applicants', so the year's admissions may be zero, and the count of firms still testing is not given. One exit is the whole completion figure, and the report does not say whether the licence was granted. The 2021 start is the year the sandbox framework launched, not stated in this report. The same report lists 'review the regulatory sandbox framework' among next-year priorities. The Capital Markets Authority launched separate Regulatory Sandbox Rules in October 2025 (cmauganda.co.ug news, 8 October 2025) with no participant count, so the record covers only the central bank's sandbox. Against about 48 million people, one completion is a rate near zero per million.
๐ฟ๐ฒZambiasince 2021delivered and closedbears on Firms through regulatory sandboxes
Zambia's Securities and Exchange Commission admitted four innovations to the first cohort of its capital markets sandbox, with testing starting on 19 November 2021, and announced on 15 July 2024 that live testing had been completed and directed all four to suspend operations inside the sandbox pending evaluation and exit.
The securities regulator admitted a single cohort of capital markets innovations, let them take real investors under parameters and caps, then froze onboarding at the end of testing so it could evaluate each before deciding on commercial deployment.
Preconditions
A sandbox guideline issued under the Securities Act
Firms, including the national exchange, willing to test under caps
A licensing decision process after testing, which here had not been published
Limits: The regulator reports on itself in a one-page press release (PDF). The four are named innovations from four firms (Kukula Capital, Lupiya Circle, Lusaka Securities Exchange and Premier Credit Zambia), one of them the national stock exchange. The release says the framework was issued on 18 December 2022 but that testing began on 'Wednesday, 19th November 2021', which cannot both be right, and neither date matches its weekday (19 November 2021 was a Friday, 18 December 2022 a Sunday); the start year 2021 is the earliest date the release gives and is not confirmed by any other source read. Completion of testing is not a successful exit: the release says each innovator will or will not be permitted to deploy commercially after review, and no outcome statement was found on the SEC site; its list of sandbox participants page is empty. If the 2021 date is right, testing ran over two and a half years for one cohort of four, and no second cohort was found. The Bank of Zambia runs a separate sandbox and reports that 'one financial innovation exited the Sandbox after a successful test' in 2024 (Annual Report 2024, printed page 69, PDF page 86, https://www.boz.zm/sites/default/files/2026-01/Bank_of_Zambia_2024_Annual_Report.pdf); summed, the two regulators show about five firms through a sandbox over three years for 21 million people.
๐ฟ๐ผZimbabwesince 2026still operatingbears on Firms through regulatory sandboxes
The Securities and Exchange Commission of Zimbabwe published a list of seven innovative financial technology solutions approved for testing in its regulatory sandbox in July 2026, among them asset, securities and infrastructure tokenisation platforms, a crowdfunding platform and a blockchain capital raising platform.
The securities regulator approves named solutions into a timed, supervised sandbox under its own guidelines and publishes the list as a public notice so investors can tell a sandbox participant from a licensed firm.
Preconditions
Sandbox guidelines issued by the securities regulator
A fintech unit to monitor and evaluate the tests
Demand from tokenisation and crowdfunding firms with no licence category to apply under
Limits: The notice is a one-page PDF listing approvals; it calls itself an update but gives no earlier list, no admission date per firm, no testing period and no exits, so the figure is a stock of approved participants at July 2026, not an annual admissions count, and started is set to the notice year because no earlier admission was read at a source. Approval for testing is not testing: the notice warns that representations beyond testing are misleading, and some entries (Financial Securities Exchange, a licensed exchange) are incumbents. The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe has run a separate fintech regulatory sandbox since March 2021, whose admissions are not counted here because no current count was read at an official source today. Seven approvals against about 16 million people is about 0.4 per million.
๐ฆ๐นAustriasince 2020still operatingbears on Firms through regulatory sandboxes
Austria's Financial Market Authority admitted eight FinTechs to its Regulatory Sandbox between its launch on 1 September 2020 and January 2023, five seeking authorisation as European crowdfunding service providers and three offering crypto-asset or securities services, and one participant had obtained a licence for a digital trading platform by the start of 2022.
Parliament amended the Financial Market Authority Act to create a sandbox at the FMA, with a federal grant for running it and an advisory board at the finance ministry that comments on each application's economic interest and readiness before the FMA decides.
Preconditions
A statutory basis and earmarked federal funding
An advisory board that can vet applications quickly
An EU rule change (here the Crowdfunding Regulation) that creates a cohort of firms needing supervised preparation
Limits: The count is the regulator's own and dates from January 2023; no later total was found, and an FMA notice on a later admission returned 403 to a script and was not read. Eight admissions in 28 months is below the five a year the federal contribution of EUR 500,000 a year was sized for (impact assessment, Vorblatt, https://www.ris.bka.gv.at/Dokumente/Begut/BEGUT_COO_2026_100_2_1632524/COO_2026_100_2_1632539.pdf, page 1), so the regime ran under its design volume. The sandbox grants no relief from regulatory requirements: the impact assessment says a core principle is that requirements are not lowered, so it is supervised testing with guidance rather than derogation. Five of the eight were crowdfunding platforms preparing for one EU regulation, which inflates the count with a one-off wave. Admission is not completion: the release names one licence obtained. The page was read through WebFetch because the FMA site returns 403 to curl.
๐ฉ๐ฐDenmarksince 2024still operatingbears on Firms through regulatory sandboxes
Denmark's data protection authority and digitalisation agency selected two projects from 23 applications for the first round of their regulatory sandbox for AI in July 2024, two from 18 applications in June 2025 and three more in July 2026, seven projects in all.
Two agencies run annual application rounds, pick a handful of AI projects whose questions others share, give each months of guided dialogue on data protection, and publish final reports so the answers reach firms that never applied.
Preconditions
A data protection authority willing to give advance guidance outside enforcement
A digitalisation agency to co-fund and co-select
Applicants willing to have their compliance questions published
Where else it has been used: The model follows Norway's Datatilsynet sandbox (nor-datatilsynet-sandkasse), running since 2020, with a smaller intake per round.
Limits: The total of seven is our sum of three announcements (https://www.datatilsynet.dk/presse-og-nyheder/nyhedsarkiv/2024/jul/to-ai-projekter-udvalgt-til-foerste-runde-af-den-regulatoriske-sandkasse and https://www.datatilsynet.dk/presse-og-nyheder/nyhedsarkiv/2025/jun/to-ai-projekter-udvalgt-til-anden-runde-af-den-regulatoriske-sandkasse); the third announcement gives no application count. Not every participant is a firm: round one included a project led by three municipalities with Systematic, round two the charity Boerns Vilkaar, and round three Region Hovedstaden with Kintella, so firms are fewer than seven. The sandbox offers guidance on data protection law, not derogations, and it is a GDPR sandbox rather than the AI Act sandbox the EU requires. Applications fell from 23 to 18 between the first two rounds. The Danish FSA's FT Lab, the financial sandbox since 2018, publishes admissions only as individual news items and no total, so it was not used; the national figure across regulators is therefore higher than seven by an unknown amount.
๐ณ๐ดNorwaysince 2020still operatingbears on Firms through regulatory sandboxes
Norway's data protection authority ran eight sandbox projects at the end of 2025, five of them jointly with the Financial Supervisory Authority on data sharing against financial crime, and completed two projects (Akershus University Hospital and Mobai's SALT biometric verification) during the year.
The data protection authority takes a few projects a year into a structured dialogue on how privacy law applies to a new use of data, then publishes a final report and podcast so the answer reaches the whole sector, and in 2025 opened a joint sandbox with the financial supervisor.
Preconditions
A ministry mandate and allocation letter that name the sandbox as a priority area
Regulators willing to give advance interpretations in public
Applicants whose question is general enough that a published answer helps others
Where else it has been used: Denmark's data protection authority opened a similar AI sandbox in 2024 (dnk-ai-sandkasse).
Limits: The authority reports on its own sandbox. It gives dialogue-based guidance and no exemption from law, so it is a controlled advisory regime rather than a derogation sandbox. Participants include public bodies (a hospital) and banks working as a group, so projects are not firms. The report is internally inconsistent on the joint financial sandbox: the chapter says five projects, the director's foreword in the PDF version (https://www.datatilsynet.no/contentassets/112abf21f900417f859c66c8f7d838de/datatilsynets-arsrapport-for-2025.pdf) says four were taken in; Finanstilsynet's own announcement of 2025 names five. The joint projects are counted here and are not added again from Finanstilsynet. Finanstilsynet's separate fintech sandbox admitted few firms (two of 12 applicants in the first pool in 2020, then single firms such as Abendum, R8Me and Qbig) and was not summed in. The sandbox is staffed by one full-time coordinator, per the same PDF, which limits its scale. The 2020 start is from the authority's earlier evaluation material, not read today.
๐ฑ๐นLithuaniasince 2018still operatingbears on Firms through regulatory sandboxes
The Bank of Lithuania opened its regulatory sandbox to applications on 15 October 2018 and, by the page's last update on 27 June 2025, listed one innovation ever tested in it: UAB Workpower's peer-to-peer insurance platform, authorised on 13 June 2019 and tested from 24 October 2019 to 23 October 2020, which led the bank to draft proportionate rules for P2P insurance.
The central bank offered live testing under supervision for financial innovations new to the Lithuanian market and used its one completed test to write proportionate guidelines for peer-to-peer insurance.
Preconditions
A regulator with authority to set test conditions under existing licences
Firms whose model does not fit existing licences, which in Lithuania were few because licensing was already fast
A route from test results to guidelines
Where else it has been used: The single test did travel into rules: the bank's 2021 news says it would issue P2P insurance guidelines, the sandbox-to-rule step that most sandboxes lack.
Limits: The live page (https://www.lb.lt/en/regulatory-sandbox) returned a bot challenge and 403 to scripts, so the archived copy was read; it carries the bank's own 'last update' date of 27 June 2025. The count is one firm in about seven years, so the regime exists but barely delivers; the page's heading 'Financial innovations currently tested' still shows a test that ended in 2020. The bank's better-known LBChain blockchain platform, which 11 fintechs from 8 countries used during development to May 2020 (https://www.lb.lt/en/lbchain, archived), was a technical test environment without regulatory relief and is not counted. The bank also runs a newer sustainability-report test under the GFIN initiative (news of 16 July 2021) that is not listed as a firm test on the page. Lithuania's high fintech licensing volume runs through ordinary licensing, not this sandbox.
๐ธ๐ฐSlovakiasince 2022still operatingbears on Firms through regulatory sandboxes
Slovakia's central bank opened its regulatory sandbox on 1 January 2022 and lists one former participant, Crowdberry Investment Platform, which entered on 22 November 2023, tested an electronic bulletin board for secondary trading of crowdfunded securities with selected clients from 15 December 2024 to 18 April 2025, and exited on 15 May 2025.
The central bank admits firms year-round into a preparation phase of up to six months of consultations and a testing phase of up to six months on real clients under a test plan, ending with a final report and meeting.
Preconditions
A published methodology for entry criteria
Staff in a fintech department to run long consultations
Firms with a product that needs real-client testing, which in a small market are few
Limits: The page lists former participants only and gives no count of current participants or applications, so admissions in progress are unknown; one completion in nearly four years of operation is the figure the page supports. The sandbox waives no regulatory requirement: the page says requirements cannot be waived, so it is supervised testing with consultation. The bank states that its innovation hub handles far more interactions than the sandbox, which reflects the design rather than a measured failure. The regulator reports on its own programme.
๐บ๐ฆUkrainesince 2025still operatingbears on Firms through regulatory sandboxes
Ukraine's Ministry of Digital Transformation and the Ukrainian Startup Fund opened a sandbox for AI and blockchain products in 2025 and, in its first year, received more than 80 applications and admitted 15 companies to a first cohort that completed testing.
The digital ministry, with a state startup fund, invites AI and blockchain firms to submit products for an expert audit across law, technology and business, and feeds what it learns into drafting AI legislation aligned with the EU AI Act.
Preconditions
A ministry with a standing AI policy unit and a lawmaking agenda to feed
A state startup fund able to recruit and pay outside experts under NDA
A pipeline of domestic AI and blockchain firms seeking EU market access
Limits: The ministry reports on its own programme in a news item, not a statistics page, and 80 is a floor ('more than 80'). The sandbox grants no statutory derogation that this check found: what participants receive is a free legal, technical and business audit by outside experts with recommendations, and the ministry's statement that firms test 'without fines or legal risks' is not backed by a legal instrument read today, so this is closer to an advisory sandbox than to a regime that relaxes rules, and it sits at the weak edge of the D152 construct. 'Completed testing' means completed the audit cycle; the ministry's page of 21 October 2025 names Artellence as the first company to finish it. Higher figures in the press (over 100 applications, 25 companies under review) were not found at an official publisher and are not used. The National Bank of Ukraine runs a statutory regulatory platform under the payment services and financial services laws, open only to firms it already licenses, but its page (promo.bank.gov.ua/sandbox) publishes no participant count, so the figure covers one programme and not every regulator.
๐ท๐บRussiasince 2018still operatingbears on Firms through regulatory sandboxes
The Bank of Russia decided in 2025 to create the legal conditions for introducing 4 digital financial services piloted in its regulatory sandbox, out of 10 pilot applications it considered that year in identification, artificial intelligence, insurance, distributed ledgers and other areas.
The central bank runs an isolated environment in which any organisation can pilot a financial service that existing law would not allow, and when a pilot succeeds it approves a roadmap of legal changes so the service can be introduced.
Preconditions
A central bank with rule-making power over most of the financial market
An expert review process for applications
A legislative route to turn a successful pilot into law, which the experimental legal regimes law of 2020 added
Limits: The central bank reports on its own sandbox, in a 351-page PDF of 57 MB, on PDF page 213 (printed page 211). The unit is applications, not firms: the report does not say how many firms stand behind the 10 applications or the 4 decisions, and one firm can file several. The 4 are read as completions because the Bank's sandbox page (https://www.cbr.ru/fintech/regulatory_sandbox/) says it approves a roadmap for legal conditions when piloting is completed successfully; the annual report itself does not say the pilots ended in 2025, and the 10 considered are not admissions, since an application can be reviewed without a pilot running. The sandbox launched in April 2018 (the Bank's sandbox page) and the Bank said in August 2023 that 86 services had been submitted since launch, so 10 in 2025 is a modest flow, about 0.07 per million people, and 4 completions about 0.03. Experimental legal regimes under the 2020 federal law on digital innovation, which the Ministry of Economic Development registers for every sector, are a second channel the column should sum; the ministry's register did not open from here (connection refused) and its last archived copy is from 2022, so they are not counted. Participants are mostly large incumbent banks and infrastructure operators, so this is not a startup programme.
๐ฏ๐ดJordansince 2024still operatingbears on Firms through regulatory sandboxes
The Central Bank of Jordan approved three companies on 31 October 2024, out of nine applications to the first cohort of its JoRegBox regulatory sandbox launched in February 2024, to begin testing digital financial products with real customers, among them the escrow platforms E-Damana and Watheq.
The central bank admits fintech firms in cohorts to test mature products with real customers under its supervision, and links the sandbox to the national financial inclusion strategy and the economic modernisation vision.
Preconditions
A central bank sandbox framework with published eligibility and exit rules
Partner banks willing to hold escrow and settlement accounts for test firms
A government programme that makes fintech a named priority
Limits: The live cbj.gov.jo page refused the connection, so the number was read on a Wayback Machine copy of the central bank's own release. Three is the admission decision for one cohort, the first under the JoRegBox name, and the release gives no count of firms completing the sandbox; the bank's annual report, which would carry later cohorts and exits, was not located today. The central bank had an earlier sandbox framework, which the World Bank's 2020 survey lists as operational from April 2018; the release treats JoRegBox as a new launch on 18 February 2024, and whether firms passed through the earlier framework is not shown here. The governor has been quoted in the press giving a cumulative count of tested products, which this record does not use because no official page carrying it was opened. Three admissions against about 11 million people is about 0.3 per million. The release frames the cohort as part of the government's economic modernisation programme, so the timing is partly political.
๐ฐ๐ฌKyrgyzstansince 2020still operatingbears on Firms through regulatory sandboxes
The National Bank of the Kyrgyz Republic approved six special regulatory regimes between October 2020 and August 2026, letting a microcredit company, three payment and e-money firms and two banks test operations outside its standing rules, judged testing successful and closed for four of them between April 2022 and February 2025, and ended one early with the licence revoked in March 2022.
The central bank grants a firm a time-limited special regime, licensed and entered in a public register with start and end dates, to test a named banking or payment operation, then records whether testing succeeded and amends its rules where it did.
Preconditions
A banking law provision allowing the national bank to set special regulatory regimes
A public register kept up to date row by row
Payment and e-money firms with products that standing rules did not allow
Where else it has been used: After the regime run by Regional Payment Systems, the board amended its regulations in May 2024 to remove obstacles to card acquiring by payment system operators, which is the route from test to rule.
Limits: Both counts are ours, made by reading the rows of the register page (dated 2 September 2026): it lists six regimes with approval, start and end dates, the words 'testing judged successful (regime completed)' against four, 'ended early, licence revoked' against the Bakai Bank regime (September 2021 to March 2022), and a sixth, Eldik Bank, approved on 7 August 2026 and testing until August 2027; the page itself states no total. Some regimes list partner institutions (the Interbank Processing Centre) as co-participants, so the count is of regimes, not of every firm involved. Six regimes in six years, about one a year in a country of about seven million people, is a thin flow, and the regime appears only once a firm asks for it rather than through open cohorts. The register says the national bank amended its regulations in May 2024 after the Regional Payment Systems regime, but it does not show whether the other completions led to rule changes. The register is a central bank page only; other Kyrgyz regulators were not checked.
๐ต๐ฐPakistansince 2020still operatingbears on Firms through regulatory sandboxes
Pakistan's Securities and Exchange Commission approved 31 business models for testing in its Regulatory Sandbox across four annual cohorts from 2020 to 2023, out of 125 fintech applicants, with intake rising from six selected in the first cohort to 11 in the fourth.
The securities regulator issued sandbox guidelines under the Companies Act and ran annual cohorts in which fintech, insurtech and capital-market applicants were screened and the selected ones tested for six to nine months under agreed limits, then switched to year-round applications.
Preconditions
A statutory power to issue sandbox guidelines, here section 458A of the Companies Act 2017 as cited in the reissued guidelines
A pipeline of fintech applicants large enough to select from
Regulator staff to evaluate applications and supervise tests
Limits: The regulator reports on its own sandbox. The figures are in a PDF on PDF page 82 (printed page 81), with a cohort chart giving applicants and selections per year (33 and 6, 38 and 6, 28 and 8, 26 and 11); the live secp.gov.pk site returns a Cloudflare challenge to scripts, so the report was read from a Wayback Machine copy of the SECP download link. 'Approved for testing' counts admissions, not completions: the report does not say how many business models finished testing or went to market. The cohort figures sum to 31, matching the stated total. After 2023 the SECP moved to an always-open format, and the same page says it had then received three applications with one testing, a much smaller intake than cohort IV, but over a shorter and unstated period, so it is not read as a decline. The State Bank of Pakistan runs a separate sandbox whose admissions are not counted here, so the figure understates the country total the construct asks for.
๐ฏ๐ฒJamaicasince 2020still operatingbears on Firms through regulatory sandboxes
The Bank of Jamaica's FinTech Regulatory Sandbox, effective from March 2020, had received 50 applications and approved 29 of them for testing by the end of 2025, including four new applications from three entities in 2025.
The central bank opened a sandbox for deposit-takers, cambios, remittance providers, credit unions and locally incorporated fintechs partnered with a bank, admitting products to a controlled live test before authorisation.
Preconditions
Guidelines and an application and fit-and-proper process run by the payments oversight function
Licensed deposit-takers willing to partner with fintechs
Fintech and payment firms with wallet and card products ready to test
Limits: The central bank reports on its own sandbox. The figures are in a 33 MB PDF served at that address, on PDF page 92 (printed page 66). They count applications, not firms: one entity can file several, as the three entities filing four applications in 2025 show, and 29 is approvals since 2020, not the number testing at year end or the number that completed and launched. The report gives 46 applications at end-2024, so only four arrived in 2025, but it gives no yearly approval figures. The approvals are described as mobile wallets, debit cards and prepaid card offerings; the same section of the report covers the bank's JAM-DEX digital currency roll-out, but it does not say whether any sandbox approval relates to it. The Financial Services Commission's activity is not included.
๐ฒ๐ณMongoliasince 2021still operatingbears on Firms through regulatory sandboxes
Mongolia's Financial Regulatory Commission admitted three products and services to its sandbox for one year in the fourth quarter of 2022 and released one, the MonPay digital bond, on 30 December 2022 after a year of testing, leaving four under test.
The non-bank financial regulator adopted a sandbox regulation in 2021 and a sandbox council that admits fintech products for a one-year test and issues a recommendation to release each one.
Preconditions
A regulation on the sandbox environment adopted by the commission
A council to decide admission and exit
Domestic fintech and virtual asset firms seeking a route to licensing
Limits: The regulator reports on itself, in Mongolian, in a PDF on PDF page 29 (printed page 30). It counts products and services, not firms. The same page breaks down requests submitted to the sandbox by type (6, 2, 2, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1), which sum to 15 by my addition, but it does not say over what period they were received or how many were refused. The admission figure covers one quarter, and the report gives no full-year admissions for 2021 or 2022, when MonPay's test began on 1 November 2021. Only one year was read: later FRC reports were not found today, so the record says nothing about whether the sandbox kept admitting products after 2022. The products under test were a repo platform, a peer-to-peer lender, an insurtech service and a crowdfunding platform, and virtual asset providers made up the largest group of requests. The Bank of Mongolia's activity, if any, is not included.
๐ณ๐ฆNamibiasince 2023still operatingbears on Firms through regulatory sandboxes
Namibia's non-bank financial regulator NAMFISA launched its Regulatory Sandbox in May 2023, received 10 applications for its first, microlending cohort, and had admitted three participants (ReferredBy Financial Solutions, Ergo Analytics trading as Verime, and the microlender Express Credit) with a fourth application under review by its 2025 annual report.
The non-bank supervisor opens industry-specific cohorts, admits licensed firms and start-ups to test a product under supervision where current legislation would not otherwise allow it, and feeds what it learns into regulation, with a FinTech Square event as its engagement channel.
Preconditions
A supervisor with power to grant conditions or exemptions to the entities it licenses
A cohort design narrow enough for a small supervisory team to monitor
A pipeline of local fintech applicants, here built partly through the FinTech Square events
Where else it has been used: NAMFISA plans to re-establish the sandbox under the Financial Institutions and Markets Act (FIMA) once it commences; the Bank of Namibia runs a parallel framework for banking and payments with no published participant count.
Limits: NAMFISA is reporting on its own programme. Both figures are inside PDFs: the three admitted participants and the fourth applicant are on printed pages 87 to 88 of the Annual Report 2025 (PDF page 100), with the same count in the risk section ('three active participants and a fourth in an advanced stage'); the 10 applications are in the Annual Report 2024 (printed page 81, PDF page 48, https://www.namfisa.com.na/download/annual-report-2024/), whose chart of successful against unsuccessful applications prints labels that cannot be read reliably as counts, so the record does not use it. The reporting year ends 31 March 2025, but the text calls the third participant 'recently admitted', so the asOf is the report year, not a day. The same report's division summary for the Market Conduct and Operations function says that in the first cohort two participants were actively regulated and monitored during 2024/25, which fits the third, Express Credit, being admitted late in the year and still in mobilisation. The count is cumulative admissions over about two years, not admissions in one year, and no firm is reported as having completed or exited the sandbox; the 2024 report notes one selected entity whose start was delayed for market readiness. Three firms in a population of about three million is small, and it covers only the non-bank sector NAMFISA supervises: the Bank of Namibia's separate FinTech innovation framework publishes no participant count and is not included. A second cohort for crowdfunding and peer-to-peer lending closed applications on 23 February 2026 with no admissions published yet.
๐ฆ๐ฟAzerbaijansince 2024still operatingbears on Firms through regulatory sandboxes
The Central Bank of the Republic of Azerbaijan began testing its first regulatory sandbox participant in December 2024 and admitted three more whose testing began in 2026, out of 14 applicants.
The central bank wrote rules on a special regulation regime that exempt participants from licensing, opened cohort application windows, and admitted a handful of banks and crypto firms to test products with capped users under its supervision.
Preconditions
A central bank that is also the integrated financial regulator, so one body can grant the exemption
Demand for products the existing licence categories do not cover, here Islamic finance and crypto exchange
Limits: The year count of three is computed from testing start dates in the registry; the central bank publishes only undated cumulative counters (14 applicants, 4 participants), so the series has no official annual figure and earlier years cannot be reconstructed if entries are removed. The registry's completed projects section shows no entries although the first test was scheduled to end in February 2026 and is still listed as current, so firms completing the regime, half of what the indicator asks for, cannot be counted. Only one regulator is covered. A sandbox of four firms is not a national flagship in the sense of a programme policymakers name first; it is filed because it evidences this gap's construct literally.