Our 3-week DataSprint in July and August 2020 brought together 120 participants from across regulated firms, start-ups, academia, professional services, data scientists and subject matter experts.
[
Financial Conduct Authority
](https://www.fca.org.uk/firms/innovation/digital-sandbox-pilot-datasprint)[Original source](https://www.fca.org.uk/firms/innovation/digital-sandbox-pilot-datasprint)
Our 3-week DataSprint in July and August 2020 brought together 120 participants from across regulated firms, start-ups, academia, professional services, data scientists and subject matter experts. They collaborated on developing high-quality synthetic financial datasets to be used by participants in our forthcoming digital sandbox pilot.
The digital sandbox will enable innovative firms to test and develop proofs of concept in a digital evaluation environment around 3 use cases related to coronavirus (Covid-19):
detecting and preventing fraud and scams
supporting the financial resilience of vulnerable consumers
improving access to finance for small and medium-sized enterprises
The creation of a synthetic ecosystem of financial data is a highly ambitious and complex task. During the DataSprint, participants made significant progress in developing data models and typologies, evaluating methodologies and producing reference data for millions for synthetic individuals and businesses.
Beyond the immediate task of developing synthetic data assets for the digital sandbox pilot, we hope the event will be a catalyst for collaboration around the development of synthetic data assets in the financial services industry.
We’re grateful to everyone who volunteered their time and expertise to work towards a public good.
Over 50 participants have continued working since the sprint, refining and expanding the data assets produced. In the coming weeks, once this work is completed, we will open applications for the digital sandbox. Thank you to everyone for your contribution.
The organisations that participated were:
Cardiff University
CIFAS
City of London Police
Companies House
ComplyAdvantage
Coventry University
Credit Kudos
Deloitte
Department of International Trade
DirectID
Dun & Bradstreet
Ealax
Edinburgh University
Encompass
Experian
EY
FCA
FinTech Relationship
FinTech Sandpit
Fiola / Finexos
Forum of Private Businesses
Future Flow
Gensys
Global Open Finance Centre of Excellence (GOFCoE)
Grant Thornton
Harvard Business School
HSBC
ING
Inpher
Kalgera
Office for National Statistics
OpenCorporates
Refinitiv
RegNet
Replica Analytics
Salv
Santander
Sedicii
Solidatus
Soprasteria
Synthesized
Lexis Nexis
The Alan Turing Institute
University of Edinburgh
Virtusa