What applies to you turns on who the customer is. Finance to an incorporated business for business use sits outside the FCA consumer credit regime, which covers most equipment, plant, machinery and commercial vehicle deals — so many dealers work with a broker without holding any permission at all. Where the customer is an individual, the picture changes.
Sole traders and partnerships are individuals in law, so their agreements can fall inside the regulated regime depending on the amount and the purpose. Broadly, business-purpose lending above £25,000 to an individual sits outside it, and smaller amounts may not — but check the current position rather than relying on a remembered figure. Finance to a private individual for personal use is squarely regulated.
Where an agreement is regulated, these are the areas that need care.
- How far you go. There is a spectrum between mentioning that finance exists and arranging it, and it turns on how much you actually do. Handing over a phone number sits at one end. Discussing products, helping complete an application, presenting monthly figures or steering a customer towards a particular funder sits well along the other.
- Permission. If what you do amounts to credit broking on regulated business, you need your own FCA permission or an appointment under an authorised firm’s permission.
- Financial promotions. Putting “finance available” or “finance from £X per month” on your website, in a brochure or on a forecourt board is a financial promotion. It must be fair, clear and not misleading, and it generally needs approving by an authorised firm. This is the one dealers most often get wrong, usually entirely by accident.
- Being paid. Taking commission or a fee for an introduction makes it much harder to argue you merely passed on a name. What a dealer is paid is agreed directly with us.
- Data protection. Passing a customer’s details to a third party needs a lawful basis, and the customer needs to know it is happening.
If you want to introduce regulated business and be paid for it, the Introducer Appointed Representative route exists: you are appointed by an FCA-authorised principal, you do not hold your own authorisation, and you operate under the principal’s, with the principal taking regulatory responsibility for what you do. In our case the principal is Rural Finance Limited. We can introduce you into that conversation and support an application, but the appointment and the ongoing oversight sit with the principal.
This is a summary of the areas to look at, not a compliance checklist you can rely on. It is general information rather than legal or compliance advice, and your own position depends on your customer mix.