The FCA has published Discussion Paper 14/1: Recovering the costs of administering the regulatory gateway through application fees (DP14/1).

The FCA is issuing DP14/1 as it feels it is the right moment to take stock of how it recovers the costs of processing applications for authorisation.

In DP14/1, the FCA covers:

  • operating the gateway;
  • distributing the recovery of authorisation costs between different fee-payers; and
  • suggestions for revising application fees.

The FCA is restricting the focus of DP14/1 to those firms in ‘A’ fee-blocks, but when it prepares its proposals for consultation in October, it will consider whether there are implications for the way it charges other types of firm such as payment services providers, electronic money issuers, issuers and sponsors of securities and mutual societies.

The FCA is not addressing consumer credit application fees in this review. The FCA is not planning to adjust the charging structure for consumer credit applications at this time.

The deadline for comments on DP14/1 is 22 August 2014.

View Discussion Paper 14/1: Recovering the costs of administering the regulatory gateway through application fees, 23 June 2014