The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) currently issues financial service firms a six-digit Firm Reference Number (FRN) to uniquely identify themselves. It is expected that this six-digit limit will be reached in 2023, and the FCA will soon be implementing a plan to change the allocation of FRNs from six-digits to seven-digits for new Firms.
Since this announcement, Criterion has been making amendments to affected Standards that use FRNs. These changes will ensure our Standards manage FRNs correctly and consistently, and we can support our customers by making the necessary changes.
Additionally, Criterion added support for ‘Other’ Regulatory bodies (e.g. for Offshore) by adding a separate type to accommodate that in each standard.
Historically, certain FCA numbers were earmarked as being used for test purposes (e.g. annuity services). However, the FCA has indicated this will no longer be the case and these numbers may be used by real organisations. Therefore, Criterion has added a new field just for testing purposes.
We have now updated and published the Contract Enquiry Bonds v2.3 PB 1, Contract Enquiry Pensions v2.5 PB 1, Contract Enquiry Collective Investments v1.5 PB 1 and Provide Contract Valuation (Wraps) v1.4 PB1 to include the FCA FRN changes.
