Know when the FCA limits what a firm can do.
A firm can stay authorised while the FCA restricts how it does business. Firmwatcher checks the register every morning for new requirements on the firms you watch – voluntary (VREQs) and own-initiative (OIREQs) – and for variations or cancellations of permission recorded as disciplinary action, and shows you the register's own wording and effective date.
Example Invest Ltd · FRN 000002 · Illustrative
Authorised doesn’t mean unrestricted.
A firm authorised under Part 4A of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 holds a permission setting out the regulated activities it may carry on – from accepting deposits to advising on regulated mortgage contracts. Payment and e-money firms are authorised or registered under the Payment Services Regulations 2017 and the Electronic Money Regulations 2011 instead. Either way, when you rely on a firm, you rely on it being allowed to do what it does for you.
The FCA can limit that without the firm ceasing to be authorised. It can impose a requirement, or agree one with the firm, that restricts how it does business – no new customers, no client money, no consumer buy-to-let mortgages – and it can vary or cancel the permission itself. The register’s headline status can still read “Authorised”. The detail is in the firm’s requirements and disciplinary history, which is what Firmwatcher checks, alongside the rest of its register monitoring.
Six kinds of entry worth your attention.
- VREQVoluntary requirements a firm has agreed with the FCA
- OIREQRequirements the FCA imposes on its own initiative
- Fin promFinancial promotion requirements recorded on the register
- VariedVariations of permission recorded as disciplinary action
- CancelledCancellations of permission recorded as disciplinary action
- AnnouncedFCA announcements that it has varied or cancelled a permission, read hourly
Firmwatcher does not read or compare a firm’s full list of permitted activities, and changes a firm applies for itself, such as a voluntary variation of permission, do not raise an alert. The register remains the authoritative record: review a firm’s permission there when you onboard it and at each periodic review.
Check, compare, alert, record.
- 01Checked every morning
From 06:00 UTC we read each watched firm’s requirements and disciplinary history from the FCA register. FCA announcements are read every hour.
- 02Compared with what we hold
You see a firm’s existing requirements and disciplinary history as soon as you add it. After that, any entry we have not seen before becomes an alert.
- 03An alert that says what is new
An email names the firm and the number and type of new entries, with a link to the alert in Firmwatcher, where you see the register’s wording and effective date – not just “register updated”.
- 04Recorded in your audit trail
When a colleague acknowledges the alert, their name, the time and their comment are recorded in your audit trail.
See the requirements on a real firm.
Bring an FRN you care about – we’ll show you its requirements and disciplinary history as Firmwatcher records them, and how an alert reaches you.
Fifteen minutes with the team. No deck – just the product and your questions.
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