Fintech
Overview
Financial services regulation rewards preparation. Most of the work that decides an application happens long before it is ever filed.
We advise payment institutions, electronic money institutions and crypto-asset service providers on authorisation and on the obligations that follow it: the structure of the business, the composition of its governing body, safeguarding, own funds and ongoing reporting.
Regulators ask the same questions of every applicant. Who controls the business, where client money sits, and who answers for it when something fails. We help firms answer those questions in their own documents, before they are asked in correspondence.
What we advise on
Preparing and filing authorisation applications for payment and electronic money institutions, including the business plan, the governance description and the safeguarding arrangements that accompany them.
Authorisation of crypto-asset service providers under the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation, and the transition of firms that previously operated under the national registration regimes it replaced.
Choosing the permission that matches the business rather than the one that sounds closest, and setting up group structures, agent arrangements and outsourcing so they survive supervisory review.
Policies, procedures and internal controls proportionate to the firm's actual risk, with the customer due diligence and monitoring arrangements a supervisor expects to see evidenced rather than described.
Board and management composition, fitness and propriety, the three lines of defence, and the reporting lines that make an internal control framework verifiable rather than merely declared.
Qualifying holding notifications, changes of control, variations of permission, and the ordinary supervisory correspondence that follows an authorisation once it is held and the business begins to change.
Guides & Downloads
Selected experience
Placeholder entries. Representative matters to be supplied and cleared before publication.
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Authorisation
[PLACEHOLDER] Advising an electronic money institution on the preparation of its authorisation file, including safeguarding arrangements and the governance description.
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Regulatory structuring
[PLACEHOLDER] Advising a payment services group on the allocation of activities between entities and on the outsourcing arrangements between them.
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Crypto-asset services
[PLACEHOLDER] Advising a crypto-asset service provider on the transition from a national registration regime to authorisation under MiCA.
Regulatory context
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Payment institution
Authorisation to provide payment services, with safeguarding, own funds and conduct obligations attached to it.
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Electronic money institution
Issuing electronic money as well as providing payment services, with its own capital and safeguarding requirements.
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Crypto-asset service provider
Authorisation under the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation for services in crypto-assets across the European Union.
Related insights
All insightsDiscuss your matter with our team.
Tell us what you are planning and we will tell you what the regulator is likely to ask.