AS Measure 5.1.2 of the Pacific Regional E-commerce Strategy and Roadmap points out, regulatory sandboxes are important for driving innovation and ensuring regulatory confidence. In FICs, as is the case with many other jurisdictions, central banks and telecom regulators have been relatively conservative about encouraging adoption of fintech precisely because their disruptive power to benefit consumers and promote financial inclusion can also destabilise the financial system if not properly regulated.

The dynamic pace at which the fintech sector is developing elsewhere in the world also leads to a perception of overall complexity. Approaches such as those proposed by the Pacific Regional Regulatory Sandbox Guidelines released in March 2020 can allow fintech providers to introduce new products while giving regulatory authorities the possibility to exercise oversight and the space to understand the products.

In addition to sandbox, support to central banks to set up innovation offices that could work to support fintechs in entering the markets through the use of sandboxes as adopted successfully in jurisdictions outside the Pacific.