Understanding FinTech Regulatory Sandbox Development in Europe (FIRSA)

Project idea

The growth and spread of FinTech has created complex challenges that have placed a significant burden on current regulatory frameworks. In response to the need to balance the promotion of innovation with the maintenance of financial stability and the protection of consumers, one institutional innovation – the FinTech regulatory sandbox (FRSB) – has gained traction to meet these challenges. However, the trajectories of adoption and the level of development of FRSBs vary significantly among EU countries in ways that remain underexplored. The FIRSA project aims to fill this gap by offering a multidimensional measurement framework of FRSBs in the EU to develop a greater understanding of their differences, relative strengths and weaknesses, and the mechanisms that lead to their implementation. Whereas existing comparative studies on FRSBs have focused on their de jure characteristics, this project will include de facto measures and will be organized in three interlocked stages. Stage one will output a measurement framework of FRSB development in the EU. Stage two will create a typology of FRSBs and validate it through qualitative case studies. Finally, stage three will apply qualitative comparative analysis to explain the trajectories of the adoption of FRSBs and factors influencing them. All project results will be disseminated through a project-specific website, which will serve as a hub for all related activities and materials, such as a dashboard on FinTech Regulatory Sandboxes in the EU, academic publications, a webinar series and a policy brief. Its innovative framework and dataset will be made available for policymakers, businesses and researchers, and will improve market efficiency by offering a centralized information hub on regulatory sandbox practices and characteristics that can be used by innovative firms to inform their decisions on if, where and how to enrol in these programs.