Trading
yourself on behalf of clients.
IFAC
can set you up to trade with a e-money licence,
API or SPI licence.
EMONEY
- 20K Capital Adequacy with FCA and 5k application fee.
IFAC charge 400 pm from submission.
E-money gives you debit cards, and virtual banking, similar to well know
firms such as Starling/ Revolut/Monzo etc. These firms
are not deposit taking institutions, but can issue money on credit.
API - IFAC charge 400 pm from authorisation. These firms can transfer money, switch
currencies and use Point of Sale POS apps online.
SPI - IFAC charge 200 pm from authorisation.
Similar to the above, but limited in scale and geographical reach.
Minimum fee period is 12 months. The reason we only charge a monthly fee is that in order to achieve the licence you need to follow IFAC procedures, compliance, AML procedures and so on. We know they are compliant and it will take a lot of work to produce your own procedures from scratch. Obviously if your firm is already trading, this is not so easy, and bespoke quote may be required.
After
authorisation we will continue to act for you as your compliance manager.
We
audit the process, have contact with you regularly and keep you acting in accordance with FCA
rules.
Our
key is to satisfy and give comfort to the FCA that your activities are beyond
reproach (which of course means that they must be so)
After
authorisation we will submit FCA returns, regularly audit your process and give
you a compliance management system BAT that will operate as your platform CRM. The system will not trade for you but will
keep a record of activities in line with FCA requirements. The system will also record customer vulnerability
online, and allow automatic sanction checks.
At
some stage in your business life you may be able to afford a full time
compliance director, and we can help recruit that role at that time, and we
usually go on to support that individual with T&C and knowledge etc.
We
can normally get the application submitted within a week of receiving all the
relevant paperwork required from you.
We
have a large number of template documents that will need adjusting for you.
The
FCA can take up to six months, but we would expect three months to be more
likely as of current climate.
The
largest part of the delays is waiting for an FCA case officer to be appointed.
The application process is rigorous and testing, and if you contact IFAC you can expect a similar standard applied - you'll know before the end of the phone conversation whether or not your application with the FCA will be successful. You will require external support. Without it you will have little idea of the quality of applications being submitted by your peers.
If you are keen to progress please sign the below link. We will be in touch with formal paperwork and
start to build the application the following day - the first step would be a
formal discussion to go through the soft facts to enable us to build the
application.