FCA reveals fourth cohort of successful sandbox firms

The FCA received 69 applications to cohort four of the sandbox, an increase on the number of applications to cohort three.

29 firms will proceed to test and five large firm tests will be conducted in cohort 4; the largest number to date.

Amongst the firms is Dashly, a fully autonomous, ‘always-on’ mortgage advice platform that continuously tracks and compares a borrower’s existing mortgage, alerting them the moment it pays to switch.

Ross Boyd, founder of Dashly, commented: “Being accepted into the FCA Sandbox is a huge fillip for everyone at Team Dashly. We believe that what we are bringing to the market is something entirely different to the first generation of ‘robo-brokers’ and will be working with the FCA closely as we seek to solve the fundamental problem of consumer inertia.

"As an ‘always-on’ mortgage platform, Dashly tests every mortgage against your unique circumstances every day, irrespective of whether you have been on your current deal for two weeks or two years. Our goal is to officially launch at the end of the summer.”

Christopher Woolard, executive director of Strategy and Competition at the FCA, said: “I am pleased to say that this is the largest sandbox cohort to date with a record number of applicants meeting our eligibility criteria.

"Cohort 4 has seen a large increase in the number of firms testing wholesale propositions including firms that are aiming to increase the efficiency of the capital-raising process. Alongside these we can see significant use of distributed ledger technology, some experimentation with cryptoassets which will help inform our policy work and propositions aimed at helping lower income consumers.”