FCA Register Database: How to Search UK Regulated Firms and People

The FCA Register is the starting point for checking whether a UK financial services firm or individual is authorised, regulated, approved or listed by the Financial Conduct Authority.

For consumers, it is a way to check if a firm is legitimate before handing over money. For businesses, it is something more: the foundation of a searchable FCA register database covering regulated firms, appointed representatives, Directory Persons, permissions, statuses and regulatory relationships.

The challenge is that the public FCA Register was built as a reference tool, not a commercial research database. It is useful for one-off checks. It is much harder to use when you need to build a target list, map a market, monitor changes or search across thousands of firms and people.

This guide explains what you can find on the FCA Register, how to search it, and where an enriched FCA database can help.

What Is The FCA Register?

The FCA Financial Services Register is the official public record of firms, individuals and other bodies that are, or have been, regulated by the FCA or PRA.

It helps you check whether a firm is authorised, what permissions it has, whether it has appointed representatives, and whether individuals connected to that firm appear in relevant roles.

In simple terms: if you want to know whether a UK financial services firm is regulated, the FCA Register is the source of truth.

What Can You Find On The FCA Register?

The FCA Register can include several types of records:

• Authorised firms

• Previously authorised firms

• Appointed representatives

• Principal firms

• Approved individuals

• Directory Persons

• Permissions and regulated activities

• Firm reference numbers, often called FRNs

• Regulatory status

• Warnings about unauthorised or clone firms

For a single compliance check, that is extremely useful.

For commercial research, the useful question is different: how do you search, segment and monitor all of this data at scale?

That is where the public FCA Register starts to feel limited.

How To Search For An FCA-Regulated Firm

The most common use case is checking a firm.

You can search the FCA Register by firm name, trading name or FRN. Once you find the right record, you can review its status, permissions, registered details and relationships with appointed representatives.

This is useful when you already know who you are looking for.

For example, a compliance team might check a supplier before onboarding. A consumer might check a financial adviser before taking advice. A B2B sales team might verify that a prospect is genuinely regulated.

The limitation is that this is still mostly a lookup workflow. You search for one firm, inspect one record, then repeat.

If your question is “show me every FCA-regulated firm matching this profile,” the public Register is not built for that.

How To Search For People On The FCA Register

The FCA Register is not just about firms. It can also include people connected to regulated activity.

Depending on the record, you may find approved individuals, certified or assessed persons, Directory Persons, senior managers and people linked to specific firms or roles.

This matters because people data is often the most useful commercial signal. A firm’s regulatory permissions tell you what it is allowed to do. Its people tell you what it actually does, who influences decisions, and how the business is structured.

Common people-related searches include:

• Finding an individual financial adviser

• Checking whether someone appears as a Directory Person

• Reviewing previous roles or firm associations

• Understanding who holds senior or controlled functions

• Mapping individuals across firms, networks and appointed representative structures

Again, the public Register is useful for lookup. It is less useful when you need people-level search across the market.

What Are Directory Persons?

Directory Persons are individuals whose details are published on the FCA Register under the Directory.

These records can include information such as the person’s name, role, activities, workplace location and the firm they are connected to.

For buyers, sales teams, compliance teams and researchers, this is valuable because it provides a more granular view of the people behind regulated firms.

For example, you may want to identify firms with certain adviser roles, understand how people are distributed across a network, or monitor when relevant people join or leave firms.

That is hard to do manually. It becomes much more useful when Directory Persons data is structured, searchable and connected to firm-level information.

What Are Appointed Representatives?

An appointed representative, or AR, is a firm or person that carries out regulated activity under the responsibility of a principal firm.

This relationship is important. If you are assessing a regulated market, you do not just need to know which firms are directly authorised. You also need to understand which firms operate as appointed representatives, who their principal is, and what activities they are permitted to carry out.

For compliance, this helps with risk checks.

For sales and market mapping, it helps you understand group structures, networks and distribution channels.

For M&A research, it can reveal how firms are connected and where control or responsibility sits.

Can You Download FCA Register Data?

There are official routes for accessing FCA Register data beyond the public search interface.

The FCA provides a Register Extract Service, which can supply extracts of firm data, or firm and individual data, under subscription. The FCA also provides API access for some Register data.

These routes are useful if you have the technical capability to process and maintain the data yourself.

But raw access is not the same as a usable product. Once you have the data, you still need to clean it, structure it, classify firms, connect people to companies, link Companies House records, identify changes and build a search experience that works for real business questions.

That is the hard part.

Why The Public FCA Register Is Not Enough For B2B Research

The FCA Register is authoritative, but it was not designed for sales, marketing, M&A or market intelligence.

The main limitations are:

• It is difficult to build bulk target lists

• It does not classify firms in commercial language

• It does not provide rich firmographic or growth signals

• It is not designed for ICP search

• It does not give you easy watchlists or alerts

• It does not connect every useful external source

• It does not tell you which firms are commercially relevant to you

A sales team does not just want “authorised firms.”

It wants “FCA-regulated firms in this segment, with this structure, in this region, matching this buyer profile.”

An M&A team does not just want “firms on the Register.”

It wants “firms that match our acquisition thesis and may be approaching a trigger point.”

A compliance team does not just want a one-off lookup.

It wants to monitor firms, people, permissions and relationships over time.

What An Enriched FCA Register Database Adds

An enriched FCA register database like Distos starts with the FCA Register, then turns it into something searchable, structured and commercially useful.

That can include:

• AI-structured firm categorisation

• Companies House API integration

• Firmographic and technographic enrichment

• People and firm relationship mapping

• Appointed representative and principal firm analysis

• Directory Persons search

• Natural language search

• Smart segmentation

• Saved lists and watchlists

• Alerts when firms or people change

• Exportable target lists

• CRM-ready workflows

This is the difference between a public register that allows you to simply lookup one person or company at a time, and a living intelligence layer that tracks the entire ecosystem.

The Register tells you what is officially recorded. An enriched database helps you act on it.

When Should You Use The FCA Register?

Use the public FCA Register when you need to:

• Check if a firm is authorised

• Verify an FRN

• Confirm a firm’s regulatory status

• Check whether an individual appears on the Register

• Review a specific appointed representative or principal firm

It is excellent for one-off checks.

When Should You Use An Enriched FCA Database?

Use an enriched FCA database when you need to:

• Build a list of FCA-regulated firms

• Search firms by commercial criteria

• Find people connected to regulated firms

• Segment the market for sales or marketing

• Identify acquisition targets

• Monitor changes across firms or people

• Track appointed representative networks

• Export data into sales or compliance workflows

That is where a product like Distos fits.

Distos uses AI to ingest, enrich, structure and analyse FCA Register data, helping teams search and target FCA-regulated firms and people in a way the public Register was not designed to support.

Frequently Asked Questions on the FCA Register Database