National Bank of Georgia launches a digital sandbox initiative offering synthetic data access for fintech testing

The National Bank of Georgia announced a digital sandbox initiative under which it will cooperate with interested parties and, upon justified request, provide access to synthetic data to support fintech development, innovation, and competition. The synthetic datasets are generated by the National Bank of Georgia’s Financial and Supervisory Technology Development Department using machine learning models and generative algorithms, including Generative Adversarial Networks, and have already been used in hackathon-related tasks. The bank positions synthetic data as a privacy-enhancing method for sharing data without disclosing real information or breaching confidentiality, while preserving the statistical characteristics needed to train and develop statistical and machine learning models. Access is intended for both regulated and non-regulated entities to test ideas and develop models based on synthetic data generated from real data sources.