FCA authorisations are moving more quickly

The FCA has just published its latest quarterly 'Authorisation Operating Metrics' are designed to provide greater transparency of the regulator's performance regarding authorisations for solo-regulated firms.

In the period covered - July to September 2024 inclusive - 98.5% of applications across all metric areas were determined within the statutory timeline.

We think this tracks with our current experience of FCA authorisations and other applications such as Variations of Permission (VoP).

The speed of allocation and turnaround time between rounds of questions has certainly stepped up. While in some cases the speed can come at the cost of quality reviews, and may suggest a need to hit key performance indicators at any cost, overall the impact is that they FCA is moving faster on applications than we have seen in years.

Turning back to the metrics, the FCA ranks its performance as red, amber or green and in the period covered it had 12 green, 4 amber and no red rated areas. The full authorisations operating service metrics is available now to download from the FCA website and the next quarterly dataset will be published in February 2025.

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If you are considering becoming FCA authorised, and would like support, our team has deep experience in getting firms ready and helping you and your team present your business in the best way. If you would like an initial conversation, do get in touch by phone or by email.