A draft bill for a “regulatory sandbox” on Wednesday last week passed a preliminary review by lawmakers. If it can clear the legislative floor during the current session, it would allow businesses — either financial institutions or technology firms — to experiment with financial technology (fintech) innovations in a loosely regulated environment. Moreover, it would make Taiwan the first nation in the world to establish a legal basis for such a sandbox framework.
The “sandbox” concept refers to an environment in which participants are allowed to conduct financial service ideas through trial and error without conforming to regulations for a certain period. It would not only benefit start-ups, but also established players that are looking to launch financial products, but have come into conflict with regulations.
Moreover, this regulatory advantage would help Taiwan accelerate fintech development, joining a fintech bandwagon that includes Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, Singapore and the UK, to name a few.
Compared with previous financial bills, work on the sandbox draft appears to be progressing quickly, suggesting that both the administrative and legislative bodies recognize the urgency of establishing a specially designed mechanism for testing new products and supporting the related ecosystem.
However, two major adjustments were made to the draft bill approved by lawmakers, compared with the original version proposed by the Executive Yuan.
First, lawmakers extended the experimental period for fintech developers to as long as 36 months, compared with the 18 months proposed by the Executive Yuan, making it the longest among nations with similar programs.
Clearly, the longer experimentation period aims to help developers deal with policy uncertainty while related regulations await review by authorities. It also gives developers more time to improve their products, reducing potential risks in commercializing new ideas.
Second, because the qualifications of fintech developers interested in the sandbox must be reviewed by a special committee, lawmakers are concerned about the composition of the committee and have requested that half of the committee comprise academics and experts.
On the one hand, lawmakers want the committee to review qualifications with objectivity, free from any interference from administrative agencies or established financial institutions. On the other hand, the draft welcomes more fintech developers to Taiwan, ensuring that promising innovation and creativity will not be stifled.
An important lesson from the legal framework created two years ago for third-party payment businesses is that legislation cannot provide all the answers for a fast-changing financial landscape, because it is such a time-consuming process.
In retrospect, the detrimental effect of bureaucratic indolence and legislative inefficiency in the process of pushing through legislation on third-party mobile payments only harmed domestic e-commerce operators, as their stronger foreign rivals were already knocking on consumers’ doors.
This time, there are promising signs of cooperation from both ruling party and opposition lawmakers in pressuring the Financial Supervisory Commission to move full-steam ahead on the sandbox legislation.
As the financial industry upgrades its infrastructure and provides new and more efficient services, there will be additional room for improvement and a demand for new technologies, such as big data, artificial intelligence and blockchain.
Although quantifying the sandbox initiative’s benefits might be difficult, it will be clear in two to three years’ time. Additional effort is needed — no one should give up on the last mile.
A foreign colleague of mine asked me recently, “What is a safe distance from potential People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Rocket Force’s (PLARF) Taiwan targets?” This article will answer this question and help people living in Taiwan have a deeper understanding of the threat. Why is it important to understand PLA/PLARF targeting strategy? According to RAND analysis, the PLA’s “systems destruction warfare” focuses on crippling an adversary’s operational system by targeting its networks, especially leadership, command and control (C2) nodes, sensors, and information hubs. Admiral Samuel Paparo, commander of US Indo-Pacific Command, noted in his 15 May 2025 Sedona Forum keynote speech that, as
As former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) concludes his fourth visit to China since leaving office, Taiwan finds itself once again trapped in a familiar cycle of political theater. The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) has criticized Ma’s participation in the Straits Forum as “dancing with Beijing,” while the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) defends it as an act of constitutional diplomacy. Both sides miss a crucial point: The real question is not whether Ma’s visit helps or hurts Taiwan — it is why Taiwan lacks a sophisticated, multi-track approach to one of the most complex geopolitical relationships in the world. The disagreement reduces Taiwan’s
Former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) is visiting China, where he is addressed in a few ways, but never as a former president. On Sunday, he attended the Straits Forum in Xiamen, not as a former president of Taiwan, but as a former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chairman. There, he met with Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference Chairman Wang Huning (王滬寧). Presumably, Wang at least would have been aware that Ma had once been president, and yet he did not mention that fact, referring to him only as “Mr Ma Ying-jeou.” Perhaps the apparent oversight was not intended to convey a lack of
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) last week announced that the KMT was launching “Operation Patriot” in response to an unprecedented massive campaign to recall 31 KMT legislators. However, his action has also raised questions and doubts: Are these so-called “patriots” pledging allegiance to the country or to the party? While all KMT-proposed campaigns to recall Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers have failed, and a growing number of local KMT chapter personnel have been indicted for allegedly forging petition signatures, media reports said that at least 26 recall motions against KMT legislators have passed the second signature threshold
RSS