The FCA has reported a slight fall in authorisation times for retail investment firms as it continues to work through a backlog of consumer credit cases.
The average time for an authorisation to be processed was 11.2 weeks in the third quarter of 2017/18, down from 12.7 weeks the previous quarter.
However, the maximum time any one application took was 152.7 weeks, up from 141 weeks.
The FCA noted that consumer credit applications dropped 10 per cent as the sector began to “stabilise”.
More than 99 per cent of authorisations met the FCA’s self imposed service standards, a slight edge up on the previous quarter.
The FCA targets 100 per cent authorisations within six months of a complete application or within 12 months of receipt of an incomplete application.
The outstanding cases relate to complex consumer credit and peer to peer firms, the FCA says.
The FCA also reduced passporting application processing times, despite seeing a 50 per cent increase in applications for the quarter as a new Mifid II reporting system for firms went live.
It now takes firms on average under a week to acquired passporting rights either into or out of the UK.
Taken from Money Marketing