Very few of them, if any, will have "full permission" as yet Knight.

Debt advisory firms of all types used to have "consumer credit licences" issued by the Office of Fair Trading. Regulation passed to the FCA from the OFT on April 1st this year.

Existing permissions held with the OFT transferred to "interim permission" with the FCA. It basically means that the advisory firm could carry on trading as before pending a full application later.

I understand that the first debt advisory firms are in their "application window" for FCA "full permission" now. I believe that it closes on December 31st.

When I say the first firms it's because the applications are timed according to location. For example, the company operating this website has to apply between January 1st and March 31st next year.

Applications could take up to six months to be fully processed, in some cases even up to a year.

There then follows a hugely confusing debate over exactly what insolvency practitioners will, and will not, have to have FCA permission for.

They don't need it to do core insolvency work. That's exempt. But they might need it to provide certain types of debt advice before acting as an insolvency practitioner, so they might not be exempt. Anyone that provides Debt Arrangement Schemes won't be exempt because it's not insolvency work. To do DAS you'll need to be in the FCA regime.

So... lots of uncertainty for insolvency practitioners regarding the FCA at the moment. Some are planning to stay within the FCA regime. Others are planning to rely on their exemption to stay away from it.

To find out whether your existing insolvency practitioner is currently within the FCA regime (interim or full permission) type Financial Conduct Authority Consumer Credit Register into Google. You'll be able to do a search.

Some IPs that are on there may not be soon if they choose to rely on their exemption rather than applying for full permission.

By the way... we're not necessarily saying in that article that there's an advantage to using an FCA regulated firm.

Thank you TDA.