The e-money and payment services sector is home to some of the largest and most innovative names in financial services. In recent years, this industry has seen exponential growth due to the variety of different business models, all competing with traditional banks, for consumers’ business, whether it is sending money abroad, operating a digital wallet on a smartphone, or an app designed to optimise a customer’s spending habits. Today, however, e-money and payment services firms find themselves subject to intense scrutiny by the FCA, both at the authorisation stage and as part of ongoing supervision.  

Whether you are an existing firm or newly applying for authorisation or are an overseas payment services provider seeking to enter the UK regulated market, at Complyport we are able to utilise our specialist knowledge and experience of compliance, regulation, and due diligence to offer clients the opportunity to navigate the increasingly complex regulatory environment. 

How Complyport can help?

Our experienced team closely monitor the regulatory landscape and help our clients to maintain the highest levels of regulatory compliance. Our e-money and payment services offering includes: 

• Providing regulatory guidance to help you understand what payment services you may be providing and what permission (if any) you would require. 
• Prepare and project manage your application for FCA authorisation/registration. This includes assistance with drafting the application and supporting documentation, such as the Business Plan; engaging with the firm and the FCA throughout the application process. 
• Identification and notification of ‘EMD/PSD Individuals’ 
• Strong prudential risk management, including capital and liquidity thresholds and wind-down planning. 
• Developing anti-money laundering (AML) and know your customer (KYC) frameworks including the mandatory annual business wide risk assessments and annual ‘AML audits’, ensuring that robust financial crime prevention arrangements are in place. 
• KYC Compliance Managed outsourcing service to support customer onboarding processes. 
• Safeguarding support, including safeguarding audits/healthchecks, gap analysis review, or general advisce, to ensure that you can demonstrate that customers’s funds are safe. 
• Implementation of the Consumer Duty rules to ensure firm-wide compliance. 
• Establishing solid operational resilience. preparedness, including mapping of important business services and regular audit of arrangements.
• Assisting with financial reporting, and assisting you with submitting your RegData returns. 
• Delivering training in person or virtually to staff and senior management to satisfy the FCA’s training requirements. 
• Creation of a firm-wide regulatory risk framework that aligns with the relevant client’s business model and risk appetite. 
• Ongoing advisory services for ad-hoc questions or queries that may arise in the natural course of business.