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In the UK a firm offering investment services must hold FCA authorisation for the regulated activities it conducts. For platforms that distribute fractional shares in property or renewable infrastructure, relevant permissions commonly include arranging (bringing about) investments, dealing in investments, operating a multilateral trading facility or operating a collective investment scheme. Separate permissions cover custody or client money handling. The Financial Services Register is the publicly searchable record of authorised firms and the specific regulated activities they are permitted to carry out.
Retail investors can use the Register to check a firm’s authorisation status, its firm reference number (FRN), and whether it is authorised for activities such as operating a collective investment scheme or holding client money. Where a platform claims to provide custody or safeguarding of investor assets, the Register entries, along with the firm’s published complaints procedure and client agreements, help clarify whether statutory protections (such as client money rules or depositary safeguards for certain funds) apply.
Permissions also imply supervisory expectations: authorised firms are subject to conduct rules, capital and systems standards, and to ongoing FCA supervision. That supervision shapes disclosures, conflicts management and record-keeping. For retail savers considering fractional digital shares, confirming a platform’s permissions and the scope of the protections that flow from them is a practical first step in understanding legal recourse, segregation of duties and the boundary between the platform’s services and the underlying asset ownership.