LicenseCompare

Financial Conduct Authority

United Kingdom corporate licensing requirements

Map the entity-level application: legal entity, permissions, ownership, governance, documents, capital/resources, controls, policies, and ongoing obligations.

Corporate requirements

  • - UK entity or branch model with permissions, investment types, and client types mapped
  • - Regulatory business plan, financial forecasts, capital/prudential analysis, and systems and controls
  • - SM&CR mapping, governance, compliance monitoring, AML, complaints, CASS, outsourcing, and wind-down planning
  • - Evidence that the firm is ready, willing, and organised at application stage

Application journey

  1. 1. Map activities and investment types to the FCA permissions needed.
  2. 2. Select the correct firm-type guidance, including investment manager, adviser, platform, or wholesale market pages.
  3. 3. Prepare regulatory business plan, 3-year forecasts, governance, SM&CR, policies, prudential analysis, and CASS position.
  4. 4. Submit through FCA Connect and respond to case officer questions.
  5. 5. After authorisation, maintain register accuracy, reporting, RegData, annual attestations, and approved-person changes.

Documents and controls

  • - People and competence: Shows that named individuals can perform or supervise the regulated work.
  • - Ownership and controllers: Explains who owns, controls, funds, and benefits from the applicant.
  • - Governance and accountability: Allocates decision rights, oversight, senior responsibility, committees, and escalation.
  • - Capital and financial resources: Shows runway, prudential planning, and resource adequacy for the proposed permissions.
  • - AML/CFT and financial crime: Shows customer due diligence, sanctions, monitoring, suspicious activity, and escalation controls.
  • - Compliance framework: Turns rules into owned, scheduled, evidenced operating controls.
  • - Custody and client assets: Explains whether client assets are held, controlled, safeguarded, deducted from, or avoided.
  • - Outsourcing and vendors: Shows that outsourced work is selected, supervised, escalated, and replaceable.
  • - Cyber and technology controls: Shows platform resilience, access control, business continuity, incident response, and data protection.
  • - Complaints and conduct: Shows conduct risk ownership, customer handling, and escalation for complaints or disputes.
  • - Regulatory reporting: Shows that recurring reports, filings, amendments, attestations, and register changes are owned.
  • - Financial forecasts: Connects business plan, revenue assumptions, costs, capital, and runway to the applicant entity.
  • - Wind-down and exit planning: Shows how clients, assets, records, complaints, and obligations would be handled if the business stops.

Capital and timeline

Capital and prudential requirements depend on the permissions, MiFID/MIFIDPRU status, client asset position, and business model.

Timeline estimate: FCA service standards distinguish complete and incomplete applications; practical timelines often run 4 to 10+ months.

Common bottlenecks

  • - Permissions requested do not match the actual operating model
  • - Financial forecasts are inconsistent with the applicant legal entity or prudential category
  • - Weak governance, SM&CR ownership, or compliance monitoring
  • - CASS, outsourcing, wind-down, and technology controls are not tailored to the firm