WHY THE VALUE OF YOUR FCA LICENCE IS GREATER THAN EVER BEFORE

Make no mistake. The value of your licence with the FCA has just doubled in value over the last two years.  

A licence is a valuable thing, and the difficulties that new firms are having in setting up and achieving a licence is an indicator of your strength. You have the licence, so make use of it, and look after it.

The entrance hurdle to the FCA is getting harder and harder, and the list of questions gets longer and longer.  The FCA clearly cannot get the staff, and those they do recruit focus on the minutae and technical detail. Forget big picture – any chance you might have of getting a license is much harder than before. 

Add to this the new powers granted to the FCA JUST THIS WEEK IN MAY 22 to cancel your permissions, or some of them, and you have a licence today that is worth a lot of money.   

The FCA regime will now give a 28 day notice after the first warning.

 And some of the red flags that may lead to the cancellation of permissions include the failure to pay regulatory fees, submit returns or the various attestations that have arisen in recent years.  

This ‘use it or lose it’ initiative, is set to make big changes to the industry.

Mark Steward, executive director of enforcement and market oversight at the FCA, said: “Businesses with permissions they don’t need or use, risk misleading consumers. These new powers will enable us to take quicker action to cancel permissions that are not used or needed."

If you had membership of the most exclusive golf club in the world, you wouldn't give it up lightly, would you?