With the financial landscape evolving rapidly, digital innovation is increasingly shaping how capital is accessed and liquidity is managed. Fintech, open banking, digital assets and other new technologies are becoming central to how companies operate.
Fintech continues to be one of the UK’s most prominent success stories, attracting $3.6bn in investment last year, second only to the US. At the FCA, we’ve long championed innovation that benefits consumers and markets, supporting growth and competitiveness through our Innovation Services.
We were early pioneers in regulatory innovation, launching our Regulatory Sandbox over a decade ago, now complemented by the Digital Sandbox. We’ve supported nearly 1,000 firms across financial services, with more than 2,500 applications leveraging innovations such as open banking, AI, machine learning, and distributed ledger technology.
Firms in our sandbox cohorts are 50% more likely to raise funding and typically raise 15% more than their peers. We’ve also recently launched the Supercharged Sandbox with Nvidia to help firms experiment with AI and are actively exploring fund tokenisation to improve investment efficiency.
We’re proud to support the ambition set out in the National Payments Vision for the UK to lead in open finance, with transformative benefits for consumers and businesses. Our Smart Data Accelerator will support research, testing and experimentation in open finance. We will be publishing a roadmap for the rollout of open finance within a year and expect the regulatory foundations for the first scheme to be in place by the end of 2027.
As we look ahead, it’s clear that digital innovation will continue to reshape how treasurers operate, bringing both opportunities and challenges
Cryptoassets are another area of rapid development. Following the government’s draft Regulated Activities Order in April, we announced that firms will be able to offer crypto exchange traded notes (cETNs) to retail consumers from October 2025. We recognise the risks in crypto markets, such as fraud and money laundering, but are committed to building a competitive crypto sector in which consumers are aware of the risks and can buy and sell cryptoassets with greater confidence.
Our Crypto roadmap, published in November 2024, outlines a balanced regime that incorporates traditional finance standards with crypto-specific features. We’ve released consultations on stablecoins and continue to work with HM Treasury, the Bank of England, and international regulators to align UK regulation with global standards. Fund tokenisation is also being explored in partnership with regulators in Singapore, Japan, and Switzerland, as we examine its potential to improve transparency, efficiency, and accessibility in collective investment schemes.
As we look ahead, it’s clear that digital innovation will continue to reshape how treasurers operate, bringing both opportunities and challenges. By fostering collaboration between regulators, industry, and technology providers, we can ensure that new technologies are deployed in ways that enhance resilience, transparency and access to capital, while maintaining trust in the financial system.
Mark Francis is the UK Financial Conduct Authority’s director of wholesale markets sell-side
This is an excerpt of an article to be published in The Treasurer, Issue 4 2025, which will be available to ACT members from 4 December 2025