Article 6 Information on the organisation of the firm

An applicant seeking authorisation as an investment firm in accordance to the United Kingdom’s legislation corresponding to Title II of Directive2014/65/EU shall provide to the competent authority the following information on its organisation:

1. (a)

   a programme of initial operations for the following three years, including information on planned regulated and unregulated activities detailed information on the geographical distribution and activities to be carried out by the investment firm. Relevant information in the programme of operations shall include:

   1. (i)

      the domicile of prospective customers and targeted investors;

   2. (ii)

      the marketing and promotional activity and arrangements, including languages of the offering and promotional documents; identification of the country where advertisements are most visible and frequent; type of promotional documents (in order to assess where effective marketing will be mostly developed);

   3. (iii)

      the identity of direct marketers, financial investment advisers and distributors, geographical localisation of their activity;

2. (b)

   details of the firm's auditors, when available at time of application for authorisation;

3. (c)

   the organisational structure and internal control systems of the company, comprising:

   1. (i)

      the personal details of the heads of internal functions (management and supervisory), including a detailed curriculum vitae, stating relevant education and professional training, professional experience;

   2. (ii)

      the description of the resources (in particular human and technical) allocated to the various planned activities;

   3. (iii)

      in relation to holding client financial instruments and funds, information, specifying any client asset safeguarding arrangements (in particular, where financial instruments and funds are held in a custodian, the name of the custodian, and related contracts);

   4. (iv)

      an explanation of how the firm will satisfy its prudential and conduct requirements.

4. (d)

   information on the status of the application undertaken by the investment firm to become a member of the investor compensation scheme of the UK or evidence of membership to the investor compensation scheme, where available;

5. (e)

   a list of the outsourced functions, services or activities (or those intended to be outsourced) and a list of the contracts concluded or foreseen with external providers and resources (in particular, human and technical, and the internal control system) allocated to the control of the outsourced functions, services or activities;

6. (f)

   measures to identify and to prevent or manage conflicts of interest that arise in the course of providing investment and ancillary services and a description of product governance arrangements;

7. (g)

   a description of systems for monitoring the activities of the firm, including back-up systems, where available, and systems and risk controls where the firm wishes to engage in algorithmic trading and/or provide direct electronic access;

8. (h)

   information on the compliance, internal control, and, risk management systems (a monitoring system, internal audits and the advice and assistance functions).

9. (i)

   details on the systems for assessing and managing the risks of money laundering and terrorist financing;

10. (j)

    business continuity plans, including systems and human resources (key personnel);

11. (k)

    record management, record-keeping and record retention policies;

12. (l)

    a description of the firm's manual of procedures.