To check a financial firm on the FCA Register, search its legal name or Firm Reference Number, confirm its current status, and check that its permissions cover the service you want. Then contact the business using the details published by the FCA. Finding a matching name is only part of the job.
Keep three questions separate: have you found the right business, is it allowed to provide the proposed service, and are you communicating with that business rather than an impersonator? Complete these checks before sending money or identity documents.
Should you use the FCA Register or Firm Checker?
The FCA Firm Checker is the simpler starting point for consumers checking a provider and its permission to offer a product or service. Search for the firm, select the relevant service, and review the result.
The Financial Services Register provides more detailed information, including historical records, information about individuals, published fines and a firm’s ability to handle client money. Use it when you need to examine the business beyond an initial consumer check.
A sensible approach is to start with Firm Checker, then inspect the fuller register record where an appointment, restriction, previous status or client money arrangement needs attention. Do not treat either tool as a rating of investment quality.
1. Find the legal entity behind the brand
Before searching, collect the business’s legal name, trading name and claimed Firm Reference Number, usually shortened to FRN. Look in the account agreement and regulatory disclosure, rather than relying on the logo at the top of the page.
Open the official Financial Services Register search independently. Search by the firm’s name or reference number and choose the firm result, rather than an individual with a similar name. Open the complete record instead of stopping at the search results.
Compare the legal name and reference number with the entity named in your proposed agreement. Check any trading names too. If the brand produces no clear match, search the legal name and FRN separately. Do not substitute a Companies House registration number for the FCA reference number.
For a business using several company names, write down which entity will provide each service. Ask which company will open your account, give advice, execute transactions and receive your payment. Avoid accepting a group name as the answer to every question.
Suppose the advertisement names one company, but the account agreement names another. Pause and check the second company in its own right. You have not completed the check until the contractual provider and the regulatory record line up.
2. Read the current status, not just the authorisation date
The distinction between FCA authorisation and registration matters. Registration does not grant general permission to provide regulated investment services, and an old authorisation date does not establish that permission remains active.
| Status | What it means for your check |
|---|---|
| Authorised | Continue to the permitted activities and restrictions. Authorisation is not permission to offer every financial service. |
| Registered | Identify the registration category. Do not assume it provides the same permissions or protections as investment firm authorisation. |
| No longer authorised or revoked | The authorisation has been cancelled. Do not rely on the historical record for new regulated business. |
If the result says “appointed representative”, follow the principal firm checks below rather than treating that status as direct authorisation.
Where you also check an adviser, compare their current role and firm connection. Not every employee needs a personal register entry, so an absent name is not enough to establish fraud. Checking an individual does not replace checking the business providing the service.
For an existing account, record the dates relevant to your transaction. Keep the question “Was this firm authorised when I used it?” separate from “Can it provide this service now?”
3. Match the permissions to what you are being offered
Read the activities, investment types, customer categories and restrictions shown in the firm’s record. Your task is to connect the proposed service with the permission that allows it, not simply find a reassuring word somewhere on the page.
Start by describing the service in ordinary language. Will the firm recommend investments, arrange transactions, carry out your instructions, or make investment decisions for you? Those descriptions give you a practical basis for questioning a mismatch.
For example, if someone offers to run your investment portfolio, do not accept an unrelated permission as sufficient evidence. Ask the firm to identify the permission covering that service. If the answer remains unclear, take the record and the proposed agreement to the FCA for clarification before proceeding.
Pay equal attention to restrictions. A condition concerning customer types or new business could matter more to your decision than the headline status. Read any linked notices and their effective dates. Separate historical misconduct from a restriction that affects the transaction you are considering.
Check the proposed payment arrangement
Review the register information about holding or controlling client money. Ask who will receive your funds and in what capacity. If the firm does not hold client money itself, ask it to identify the provider that does, then check that provider separately.
Do not assume a third party arrangement is either suspicious or safe without examining it. The account agreement should make the arrangement understandable. Our guide to client money, asset custody and broker failure covers the separate questions about where cash and investments are held.
4. Check the principal behind an appointed representative
An appointed representative, or AR, carries on agreed business under a principal firm’s responsibility. The statutory provisions for appointed representatives tie that responsibility to the business the principal has accepted. An appointment is not an unrestricted permission to sell financial products.
Open the principal’s register record and examine its current status and relevant permissions. Check the appointment details, including whether the relationship is current. Then contact the principal through its published contact details, not through a number supplied only by the representative.
Ask the principal to confirm that the representative is acting for it in relation to your proposed service. Send the product name and a copy of the offer where appropriate. A general confirmation that the representative belongs to its network is less useful than confirmation about the actual business being proposed.
For example, if you are discussing investment advice, ask whether the principal accepts responsibility for that advice through this representative. Do not infer the answer from an appointment concerning another service.
Keep the response with your account paperwork. If the principal cannot confirm the arrangement, stop the application until the discrepancy has been resolved.
5. Confirm that you are dealing with the genuine firm
A correct name and FRN do not authenticate the person contacting you. Fraudsters copy genuine regulatory details and use altered telephone numbers, email addresses or websites. The FCA guidance on clone firms identifies this misuse of genuine firms’ identities.
Compare the contact details you have received with those published on the FCA’s services. Where a website is listed, examine the address carefully rather than relying on its branding. For email, compare the domain after the @ sign, not just the sender’s display name.
Contact the firm afresh through its published details. Ask it to confirm the person, offer and account opening process. Before transferring funds, ask it to verify any payment instructions that arrived through a different channel.
Consider a hypothetical case: a caller gives you an FRN that leads to an authorised investment firm, but sends an application through an unfamiliar web address. The register search has established that the genuine firm exists. It has not established that the caller represents it.
Do not let the caller close that gap with another screenshot or certificate. Obtain confirmation directly from the genuine business. Our guide to identifying clone firms and fake investment websites examines the impersonation checks in more detail.
If contact details are missing, or someone claims the FCA’s details are outdated, leave the discrepancy unresolved rather than accepting replacement details from the same person you are trying to verify.
6. Search the Warning List and investigate missing results
Search the FCA Warning List of unauthorised firms for the business name and review any matching warnings. An absence from the list does not establish legitimacy: the FCA may not yet know about an unauthorised operation.
Read a warning carefully. Where it concerns a clone, distinguish the impersonator’s details from those of the genuine firm whose identity has been copied. The warning is not necessarily an allegation against that genuine business.
If you cannot find the firm, or its contact details do not match, contact the FCA consumer helpline on 0800 111 6768. Have the claimed legal name, FRN, web address and offer details ready.
Do not send a small deposit while waiting for clarification. A smaller payment does not resolve an identity or permission problem. Nor should a deadline supplied by the seller determine how quickly you abandon the check.
7. Check protection separately from authorisation
Neither Firm Checker nor the Register can confirm that Financial Services Compensation Scheme or Financial Ombudsman Service protection will definitely apply to your circumstances. Keep this separate from the question of whether the firm has permission to operate.
For investments, the FSCS investment protection requirements depend on the provider and the regulated activity involved. FSCS does not compensate for poor investment performance. It may protect eligible claims where a provider fails and there is a shortfall in money or assets held for customers.
Ask the provider to confirm in writing whether the service it will perform for you is regulated and whether it falls within FSCS protection. Ask about the proposed arrangement, not whether the company is “FSCS covered” in general.
Use a concrete description: “You will arrange this investment and this company will hold my assets. Which part of that arrangement is protected?” If the answer is vague, clarify it with the relevant scheme before relying on it.
Even after identity, permissions and protection checks, you still need to assess the investment’s risks, charges and withdrawal terms. Regulatory checks are not a substitute for that decision.
Keep a dated record before paying
Create a short verification file while the offer and account documents are in front of you. Save your own records of what you checked, rather than relying on a pack assembled by the seller.
- The legal entity, trading name and FRN you checked.
- A dated copy of the status, relevant permissions and restrictions.
- The contact details used to reach the firm independently.
- Any principal firm confirmation and explanation of who receives your money.
- The account agreement, product documents and written protection explanations.
Keep unresolved questions in the same file. Do not convert “the salesperson said it was fine” into a completed check. Record what evidence would settle each question and who needs to provide it.
Repeat the relevant checks if the contracting company, service or payment recipient changes before you fund the account. Treat a different provider as a fresh verification task, even if the branding stays the same.
If you have already paid and then find a mismatch, contact your bank promptly and preserve the communications. Follow the separate guide on what to do after losing money to an investment scam for reporting and evidence handling.
A completed FCA check should leave you able to name the provider, identify its relevant permission and explain how you confirmed its identity. If one of those answers is missing, do not treat the check as complete.