Our approach to providing principal services, sometimes called a regulatory umbrella, is summarised below. If you want to find out more then contact us.
Becoming authorised/approved
We begin by undertaking a pre-assessment of your firm, they key individuals and the firm's activities. This allows us to see if we are a good fit for you and vice versa.
If it is mutually beneficial for us to proceed we will provide you with our AR agreement. You will need to sign this (electronically) to proceed.
Once the AR agreement is signed we will collect all the information from you to undertake the on-boarding process for the firm and key individuals, and to submit the applications to the FCA. We gather all the information electronically and securely (TLS 1.2/SSL encryption is used and data is encrypted at rest to further secure it against unauthorised access) but we will need to meet you face to face.
We submit the applications to the FCA and manage the authorisation process for the firm and the approval process for individuals.
After authorisation/approval
Once you are authorised as a firm and approved as individuals you can conduct the regulated activity for which you are authorised.
We also provide continuing professional development (CPD) as part of our service. This is an important element of complying with FCA rules.
We will regularly review your firm and the approved persons to ensure you are adhering to the FCA rules.
We will also undertake periodic checks of our KYC documentation and your fitness and propriety to conduct regulated business. While we will meet with you in person, the data for the periodic reviews and other checks is collected electronically. This means that when we meet we can just focus on the important issues.
Our aim to to work with you to ensure that you are compliant with the FCA rules while freeing you of the burden of regulatory administration so that you can focus on building your business.