Licenses for financial activities (MSB, SPI, AEMI)
Are you planning to develop a business related to money transfers and other currency transactions? In this case you need to obtain a license.
Who may need a financial license:
- startups launching a fintech project;
- entrepreneurs with their own payment system;
- businessmen opening currency exchangers;
- representatives of the e-commerce sector.
Licensing of financial activities of the company is necessary if the work will be associated with:
- conducting transactions, exchanging one currency for another;
- cashing traveler's checks in another currency;
- electronic money transfers;
- merchant acquiring via POS terminal;
- transfers of digital currencies from client to recipient.
Basic Steps
Stages of obtaining a financial license:
- Study of the client's case, goals, planned results;
- selection of a financial license for the client's request;
- Preparation of documents for company registration;
- incorporation of the company in Canada or the UK, including sabstens and hiring a local secretary;
- developing a business plan;
- completing AML and KYC policies and procedures;
- obtaining SWIFT and LEI numbers;
- opening a corporate bank account;
- installation of third party service provider banking software with testing and integration if required;
- licensing of the company's financial activities (MSB/SPI/AEMI).
We help resolve a variety of issues:
- resolve complex legal and bureaucratic situations that a client may face;
- comply with all regulatory requirements after obtaining a license;
- we alert you to changes in legislation and promptly prepare documents or reports that need to be submitted to regulators.
What documents are required to obtain a license to carry out financial activities?
To pass the licensing of financial activities of the company, you should submit:
- constituent documents;
- an application for a financial license;
- a business plan describing the financial services you are going to provide;
- information about the ultimate beneficiaries, directors, AML-manager, bank accounts, organizational structure;
- a document confirming the physical address of the office in the jurisdiction;
- an estimate of the annual volume of transactions;
- a risk tracking and prevention scheme (compliance with mandatory AML/CTF and KYC rules).
Financial license processing timeframe
It will take 3 to 5 months to license a company's financial activities in Canada (MSB license). The processing time for UK SPI and AEMI licenses varies from 6 to 15 months.