The regulatory sandbox, announced during last year’s SCxSC Fintech Summit, is a regulatory tool that enhances policies and ensures they are fit for purpose by providing a controlled environment for entities to test innovative capital market products or services.

The SC Chairman Dato’ Mohammad Faiz Azmi said the sandbox facilitates responsible innovation in the capital market while also ensuring robust investor protection.

“By empowering industry players to experiment with innovative ideas, the sandbox embodies our vision of building a dynamic, inclusive, and future-ready capital market. It also fosters collaboration across the ecosystem, ensuring progress aligns with investor protection,” he said.

The eligibility criteria for the sandbox include:

• Introduce a capital market product or service not currently available in Malaysia and does not fully fit any of the SC’s existing frameworks
• Demonstrate a clear value proposition to the Malaysian capital market
• Present comprehensive testing plans, expected outcomes, and winding-down measures
• Demonstrate sufficient resources including human, financial, and operational
• Showcase a realistic business plan for post-testing commercialisation
• Possess the necessary infrastructure, governance, and fully functional prototypes to begin testing

Products and solutions focusing on financial inclusiveness, Islamic finance, or retirement solutions are strongly encouraged.

Applications for the sandbox will open from 15 April until 31 May 2025. Applicants will be notified within 30 days of submission if they have progressed to the evaluation stage.

The evaluation stage is estimated to take two months, subject to the complexity of the application received, after which successful candidates will be informed of their admittance into the Sandbox.

Alongside the Guidelines, application forms are now available, allowing interested parties to prepare ahead of the application window opening in April.

The SC encourages interested parties to reach out to [email protected] for pre-consultation sessions.

The Regulatory Sandbox Guidelines, application forms and other details can be found at https://www.sc.com.my/development/digital/regulatory-sandbox .