UK Financial Conduct Authority Opens Digital Securities Sandbox

According to Odaily, the UK's Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has opened applications for its Digital Securities Sandbox (DSS) at the end of September, easing certain rules for distributed ledger technology (DLT) market infrastructure. Two entities have received preliminary approval: Montis, a prospective central securities depository (CSD) owned by Archax, and ClearToken, which plans to operate as a central clearinghouse for crypto and tokenized assets. ClearToken is backed by companies such as Nomura's Laser Digital and Standard Chartered's Zodia Custody. Similar to the EU's DLT pilot regime, the DSS program relaxes the requirement for exchanges and central securities depositories to remain separate, acknowledging that such separation can be impractical for DLT.