FCA (Financial Conduct Authority)
The Financial Conduct Authority is the United Kingdom’s regulator for financial services firms, including EMIs, payment institutions, and many crypto businesses for AML purposes. It authorises firms, sets conduct rules, and can restrict or withdraw permissions where a firm falls short.
An FCA authorisation or registration is a demanding, months-long process, and the UK crypto AML register in particular has approved only a fraction of applicants. Knowing whether the FCA is the right regulator for your model, and preparing to its standard, decides whether you spend those months once or twice.
An EMI licence is the authorisation a regulator grants a firm to operate as an Electronic Money Institution: issuing e-money and providing payment accounts and services.
A Payment Institution is a firm licensed to provide payment services, such as executing transfers, acquiring transactions, or issuing payment instruments, without issuing e-money.
A Money Laundering Reporting Officer is the named individual a regulated firm appoints to oversee its AML programme and file suspicious activity reports with the national financial intelligence unit.
A capital requirement is the minimum amount of own funds a regulator obliges a licensed payments or e-money firm to hold, sized to its licence type and activity, so it can absorb losses and wind down safely.