The lobby of Tel Aviv’s stock exchange. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

CTech – The Israel Securities Authority (ISA) and the Israel Innovation Authority (IIA) have selected five fintech companies to participate in their “Data Sandbox” project as part of their new pilot program. The initiative is meant to promote the activity of fintech companies in Israel as part of the ISA’s strategy to modernize the Israeli stock market.

The process began with a call for proposals six months ago. Five companies that offer solutions in varied sectors like market making, digital tools for identification and verification, recognizing anomalies in trading, solutions for investment managers, and more, were ultimately selected. These sectors provide solutions for the many challenges facing the ISA and the stock market; for example, increasing liquidity, improving ordering capabilities, and providing access to information for regulated bodies.

The “Data Sandbox” program creates a direct interface between the regulatory agencies and the bodies under supervision with growing companies in the fintech sector. The companies participating in the program will receive access to the ISA’s database and receive added value in developing advanced technologies for the financial sector. The pilot program is a first of its kind collaboration between the ISA, the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange, and the IIA, and came to fruition thanks to the support and backing of the Ministry of Finance.

The companies chosen for the program are Zira.co, which uses artificial intelligence (AI) to determine the risk factor of an investment; Scanovate, which will work to set up an Identity Provider (IDP) SaaS cloud platform for investors, and Correlate Capital, a technology-driven quantitative trading firm which created a market-making engine that provides liquidity and a wide range of financial products. Two additional companies will conduct a pilot with the ISA through the use of trading information they will receive from the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange. Those two companies are AI startup FINTICA and WizSoft, which develops data-mining tools for analyzing the data, issuing predictions, and revealing errors and frauds.

“The pilot program that will soon get underway is part of the ISA’s strategy to promote, develop, and sophisticate the Israeli stock market and to encourage the supervised bodies to corporate with fintech companies so that the Israeli financial consumer will be able to benefit from advanced technological solutions,” said Anat Guetta, chair of the ISA.

“The high demand for this program and the varied solutions that won the support proved the importance of this move and of the collaboration between the ISA and IIA. Therefore, we decided to open another call for proposals that is also set to be completed this year,” said Aharon Aharon, CEO of the IIA.