Rebuildingsociety reopens to ARs
Rebuildingsociety is ready to start onboarding new appointed representatives (ARs) within the coming months, after working closely with the regulator on new rules for the AR space.
The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) had temporarily banned Rebuildingsociety’s ARs from doing any new lending while the regulator carried out more research into the AR/principal structure for peer-to-peer lending platforms.
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This research led to the publication of new, stricter rules for ARs and principals, which came into effect last month.
Daniel Rajkumar, chief executive of Rebuildingsociety, told Peer2Peer Finance News that he was “pleased” with the new rules.
“Many of the proposed changes were synergistic with practices we already had thanks to an independent review undertaken by RSM at the start of 2021 which took us significantly beyond the compliance requirements at the time,” he said.
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“For a period, we had a voluntary requirements notice (VREQ) in place while we worked to improve the firm’s risk management framework. I’m pleased that our cooperation with the regulator means that the VREQ was lifted in July, and we are in a position to onboard new ARs in the coming months.”
Rajkumar revealed that he played an active role in the creation of the new AR rules. For instance, he asked for a reduction in advance notice, and the proposed 60 days has now been reduced to 30 days. He also suggested that principal firms should take an interest and oversight of any non-regulated financial services, and the FCA acted on this suggestion.
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“With these new rules, I believe there is a good opportunity for collaboration between new market entrants and existing, established firms,” Rajkumar added. “The new rules give us comfort that the standards will be high for all AR and principal firms.”