Financial Services
Meet your Financial Services team
Dedicated professionals ready to assist you.
Financial Services
Corporate Financial Services M&A
Herrington Carmichael is recognised for its market-leading expertise in high-value transactions and advisory work across the financial services sector. We offer thorough and practical expertise tailored to the specific needs of PRA and FCA regulated clients and work with a range of acquirers and vendors in the Financial Services sector. These range from the requirements of the Financial Services & Markets Act and the FCA Regulations, to the ways that businesses generate revenue and provide advice to their clients.
Our specialist team have extensive experience of navigating these points during a transaction and is able to deliver pragmatic legal solutions to achieve clients’ objectives and the team has been recognised by industry peers, winning the “Best Legal Support to Advisers” award in the FT Adviser Awards in 2024 and 2025.
Digital Asset and Blockchain Services
Our digital asset lawyers can advise on the FCA authorisation procedure for qualifying cryptoasset firms, together with compliance and regulatory advice, corporate structuring, general commercial, intellectual property and data protection issues relating to your cryptoasset business.
FinTech
Financial technology (better known as fintech) describes new technology that improves and automates the delivery and use of financial services. This amalgamation has revolutionised how financial services are accessed, used and delivered.
Whilst Fintech companies have a keen understanding of both the financial and technological realms, the legal complexities linked to this merger can be daunting.
Our FinTech services:
- Contractual Relationships
- Cybersecurity & fraud prevention
- Data Protection & Privacy
- Disputes
- Intellectual Property (IP)
- Mergers & Acquisitions
- Regulatory compliance
Regulatory & Compliance
Our Regulatory and Compliance teams have extensive experience advising household names operating in many sectors in the financial services industry, including high street banks, insurance companies, insurance brokers, pre-paid card providers and independent financial advisors.
We have advised clients operating in the financial services sector at every stage of their corporate life, from:
- Drafting and advising on Financial Conduct Authority applications,
- Advising and preparing associated policies and procedures for businesses just starting out in the financial services sector,
- Assisting long established financial services businesses with their compliance programs and reporting obligations.
All Financial Services
What our clients say about us
Unlock valuable insights from our articles
Frequently Asked Questions
Find answers to your most pressing questions about our services and processes.
The answer is very fact specific and will depend what your business will be doing. In order to confirm whether or not FCA authorisation is required, a regulated activities analysis should be performed. This involves mapping the activities of the business against the relevant regulated activities and available exemptions. The complexity of the regulated activities analysis will vary depending on the nature of the activities to be carried out by the business.
Alternatives to FCA authorisation are potentially available – for example becoming an appointed representative– please see below for more details.
If your business will be undertaking regulated activities, it will need to be authorised or exempt for those activities. Becoming an appointed representative of a business that is already FCA authorised is one potential alternative to your business becoming FCA authorised itself. Whether or not the appointed representative route is appropriate would depend on the surrounding circumstances and also the goals of the relevant business – there are pros and cons to becoming an appointed representative for example speed vs cost.
The FCA has wide-ranging powers to implement a number of different sanctions ranging from providing guidance, publicising enforcement action, imposing fines, to bringing criminal proceedings against directors personally. The exact sanction applied would depend on the nature of the breach and the surrounding circumstances.
The first stage would be to ascertain whether or not the proposed change in the business ownership and control amounts to a “change of control” for these purposes. If it does, the starting point is that it is a criminal offence to proceed with the change in control without the FCA’s approval. There are some limited exceptions which could potentially be available depending on the circumstances – a detailed analysis is required on a case-by-case basis.
If the business is directly authorised by the FCA and you are buying / selling shares in the directly authorised company / LLP, then the FCA must first approve the Buyer as the new owner before they can acquire the shares.
However, if you are selling the assets / clients of your firm, no approval from the FCA is normally required.
If you are selling your company, it is likely that the buyer will require you to give some assurances in relation to the past advice you have provided before the sale concludes. This is typically in the form of an “indemnity” (which means you must reimburse the buyer for any costs or liabilities it incurs in relation to a specific matter). However, these should be accompanied by appropriate limitations on your liability; such as a maximum time period (after which the indemnity expires), and obligations on the buyer to pursue professional indemnity insurance first.