There are many questions to be answered about FCA Authorisation, over time we hope to answer them all in these blogs. So, let’s start with the question we get asked the most…
Do I need FCA Authorisation?
In almost all cases, yes. The most common exclusions are if you are offering less than 12 payments over less than 12 months and charge no interest or if you are only selling to limited companies, so our two biggest customers are retailers and automotive dealers – you will need to be authorised.
Once you’re authorised, you will have annual fees to pay, this fee for the average car dealer is around £160 per annum, but this is going to rise to £350 per annum, your FCA licence doesn’t expire, but it can be revoked!! if you fail to pay your ongoing fee’s and file your reports then this will happen… but hey!! That’s why you’ll get us to do it for you.
There are a few different ‘levels’ of FCA Licence available, but if you’re a motor dealer or retailer, you will need FCA permissions for credit broking, and more often than not you will need ‘Limited Permissions’.
We always get asked how long will it take for my licence to be authorised? The FCA state for a standard Limited Permission Licence it can take up to six months, however for The Compliance Guys Ltd clients, the average is around three to four weeks if everything is correct.