London Capital Finance - What Did FCA Authorised Mean?

London Capital Finance made the "FCA Authorised" claim on its marketing materials and website but this was meaningless for most investors as the bonds that they bought were not covered by the FCA authorisation and are not protected by the FSCS.

So what exactly did the FCA Authorised and Regulated mean?

London Capital Finance - What Did FCA Authorised Mean?

If you check the details you'll see that LCF was only authorised and regulated for credit activities so for making loans to businesses. It does raise the question of what exactly the FCA were even doing to regulate London Capital Finance for these activities when the administrators report is so damning about the loans that LCF made.

If FCA were meant to be regulating LCF for the loans that were made then that seems to be another failure of their regulatory process when loans can be made to companies such as:

• One that has no bank account
• Companies that have no assets as security
• Companies that have never traded
• Companies that have no income and no means to repay
• Loans made with extortionate repayment terms with rates up to 44%

So what exactly does FCA do when it authorises a company for credit facilities? Is it literally a tick box exercise or do they actually check the company? If so they yet again seem to have failed in their duty for regulating LCF as well as paying no attention to the warnings from as far back as 2015 that LCF was misleading consumers.