FinTech
The Polish Financial Supervision Authority (UKNF) undertakes a number of activities to encourage financial innovation. The initiatives are addressed to supervised entities, entities seeking appropriate authorisation to carry out regulated activities, and start-ups. The UKNF support is provided through initiatives such as Innovation Hub Programme and/or interpretations under Article 11b of the Polish Act on financial market supervision. As more forms of regulated support are now available, the UKNF has decided to offer the interested entities also technological assistance. To that end, a Virtual Sandbox has been launched within the UKNF’s IT infrastructure as a testing environment which allows simulation of selected functionalities and services to be offered on the financial market. By using the Virtual Sandbox, the participants in the tests gain access to an IT infrastructure which allows verification of their business assumptions in a controlled testing environment.
The UKNF’s first Virtual Sandbox available to interested entities can be used to simulate a number of banking operations and test solutions based on the Open API interface, which complies with the Polish API standard. An entity planning to offer an innovative payment service may apply to the Innovation Hub Programme, where it can consult service users about its idea and to test its functionalities in an IT testing environment simulating the basic services provided for in the Payment Services Directive 2 (PSD2), i.e. the Payment Initiation Service (PIS), Account Information Service (AIS), and Confirmation of Availability of Funds (CAF).
Participation in the tests is voluntary and represents an expansion of the existing Innovation Hub Programme in which market participants can consult UKNF experts about their innovative solutions. The access to both the Innovation Hub Programme and the testing environment is free and voluntary. The Virtual Sandbox is open to supervised entities, entities seeking KNF authorisation to carry out regulated activities, and start-ups.
How can you join the Innovation Hub Programme and test your solution in the Virtual Sandbox?