One Year of Financial Sandbox: "Designated Innovative Services Attracted 136 Billion KRW Investment, Created 380 Jobs"

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Hyo-jin] The Financial Services Commission and the Financial Supervisory Service announced on the 14th that a total of 102 innovative financial services have been designated under the financial regulatory sandbox system implemented since April last year.

Based on this, 36 innovative financial services have been launched in the market. An additional 30 services are expected to be introduced in the market during the first half of this year.

Among the 102 cases, fintech companies accounted for the largest share with 54 cases (53%). Financial companies accounted for 39 cases (38%), IT companies 6 cases (6%), and the public sector 3 cases (3%).

Once designated as an innovative financial service, approval and business activity-related regulations are waived or deferred for up to four years.

The financial authorities evaluated that through consumer-tailored financial services, they are reducing costs for the public and enhancing financial accessibility, while contributing to resolving financial blind spots by developing services specialized for small and medium-sized enterprises and small business owners.

Furthermore, by expanding opportunities for fintech and startups such as attracting venture capital, creating new jobs, and overseas expansion, innovative financial services are playing a positive role in newly establishing the virtuous cycle conditions of the fintech ecosystem.

An example is Payple, a fintech company that started its business with a capital of 20 million won. Payple, which operates an online simple payment service, attracted an investment of 300 million won from global venture capitalists (VCs) after being designated as an innovative financial service.

Smallticket, which provides a pet insurance platform service focused on pet health improvement, attracted an investment of 1.5 billion won, and Finda, TeamWink, and Pinset, which offer online loan comparison services, attracted investments of 4.5 billion won, 3 billion won, and 2 billion won respectively after their designation as innovative financial services.

According to the financial authorities, including these companies, 16 fintech and startups designated as innovative financial services have been recognized for their growth potential and received a total of 136.4 billion won in new investments.

Additionally, 380 jobs were created in 34 fintech and startups, and 7 companies are pursuing expansion into 14 countries including Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, and Hong Kong, according to the financial authorities.

The financial authorities plan to strive to enhance and solidify the system so that innovative financial services can be established as a more effective and sustainable system, while actively supporting various innovative attempts related to the spread of non-face-to-face, data, and platform-centered financial services due to the novel coronavirus infection (COVID-19).

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.