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New Zealand’s Financial Markets Authority said on March 12 that it is seeking to widen its fintech sandbox after the pilot’s first year, framing the next step as a possible “on-ramp or restricted licence” for innovative firms rather than a finalised new regime. In the same announcement, the regulator said six firms entered the current pilot and four have identified a pathway to market, while it also published responses to its 2025 tokenisation discussion paper.
The announcement matters for RWA and tokenised-property markets because the FMA paired the sandbox update with a concrete supervisory action. The regulator said it had designated Easy Crypto’s non-yielding stablecoin as not being a financial product under the Financial Markets Conduct Act 2013, and the formal notice shows that designation applies to NZDD stablecoins issued by ECDD Holdings Limited after the notice took effect on March 11, subject to reserve, disclosure and verification conditions.
The broader regulatory backdrop is that the FMA has been testing how existing New Zealand financial-markets law applies to tokenised assets rather than introducing a bespoke tokenisation statute. In its submissions report, the regulator said tokenised financial products and services remain subject to existing legislation, including fair-dealing rules, while also acknowledging that the current framework does not explicitly recognise virtual asset service providers through a clear licensing pathway. That context is especially relevant to real-estate tokenisation because the FMA’s own consultation materials identify real estate as one of the asset classes being tokenised overseas, and the sandbox already includes a property-linked precedent through Homeshare, which the regulator previously described as a platform for fractional ownership of real estate.
In practice, the March 12 move does not yet create a new licence category or expand market access on settled terms; the release says only that the FMA is aiming to evolve the pilot, with details of eligibility, duration and conditions still unspecified. For issuers and platforms, the immediate significance is that the FMA is continuing to use existing tools such as exemptions and designations to bring tokenised products to market, as seen in the Homeshare exemption for fractionalised residential property and the ECDD stablecoin designation. For investors and intermediaries, the position remains that tokenised structures are being accommodated within existing supervisory settings, with any change in practice still dependent on future FMA guidance or formal legal instruments.
