The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has restructured its authorisation application fees effective January 24.
In a 51-page policy statement, the FCA noted: “Most of our application fees have not changed since our predecessor, the Financial Services Authority, introduced them nearly 20 years ago. Inflation has subsequently eroded their value, leaving authorised firms paying an increasing proportion of our processing costs for applications for authorisation through their periodic fees.
“When we reviewed them in 2020, we identified more than 80 separate charges for FCA applications. This is confusing, and so we have condensed them into the 10 simple pricing categories in Table 2.1. We grouped the charges into the 10 categories by, first, revalorising them in line with inflation from the date of their introduction and then moving them up or down to the nearest pricing category.”
According to the regulator, 49 charges went up, 23 remained unchanged, and 11 were reduced. Below are the standard pricing categories.
|
Category |
Fee (£) |
|
1 |
250 |
|
2 |
500 |
|
3 |
1,000 |
|
4 |
2,500 |
|
5 |
5,000 |
|
6 |
10,000 |
|
7 |
25,000 |
|
8 |
50,000 |
|
9 |
100,000 |
|
10 |
200,000 |
“We believe that the overall impact of our proposals would raise the contribution of applicants towards the cost of processing their applications from about a third to about two-thirds,” wrote the FCA, which will revalorise the category values annually to avoid erosion through inflation in the future.
“We consider this a fairer apportionment in principle, though there would not be a large practical impact on existing fee-payers.”
The newly published policy statement applies to all FCA fee-payers and to businesses considering applying for FCA authorisation or registration.
Meanwhile, some additional new charges have been introduced as well. These relate to claims management companies and credit-related permissions.
In a release, the watchdog also highlighted: “Further work is required before we introduce the new charge of £250 for stand-alone long Form A applications both for senior manager functions and for controlled functions for appointed representatives.
“This change was part of our consultation. We’ll still be introducing that fee and will update you on our plans in due course.”
