Preparing to register as a financial service provider

Contact and business details

• Your full legal name and any other names you are known by or have been known by previously.
• Your date of birth and gender (will not be publicly available).
• Previous FSP numbers (if you have previously been registered as an FSP).
• Your residential address (will not be publicly available).
• Your business address — the physical address that you provide financial services from.
• Any trading names you use.
• An address we can use for communication, along with your business and personal email addresses. We use these addresses to contact you – they are not made publicly available.

Financial services

• What financial services you will be providing.
  • For some services you might also need to licensed by the relevant licensing authority.
• Whether you will be providing financial services to retail clients or only to wholesale clients.

Reporting entity status

• Whether the FSP is a reporting entity under the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism Act 2009 that provides financial services. If yes, you must confirm who the AML/CFT supervisor(s) are.

Filing month

To remain registered as a financial service provider you must confirm your FSP's details and services each year. This is called an annual confirmation. Your first annual confirmation will be due next year in the month you choose.

• The system will assign you an annual confirmation filing month. You can keep that or change it to any month, other than December or January. 

Threshold declaration

• Confirmation that you expect to provide financial services to persons in New Zealand above the minimum annual business threshold, being:
  • 10 New Zealand resident financial services clients, and
  • $10,000 of financial services transactions in total with its New Zealand resident clients.

In the first 6 months after registration, you must have achieved half of the threshold. That is:

• 5 New Zealand clients, and
• $5000 of transactions with New Zealand resident clients.

Contacts and business details

If your business is already on a Companies Office register

You will need:

• your entity's name, and
• the number assigned to it on the Companies Office register, or
• its New Zealand Business Number (NZBN).

You can find these by searching the relevant Companies Office register.

Companies Office registers

• Companies Register External link
• Limited Partnerships Register External link
• All Companies Office registers External link

You will also need to provide:

• any trading names you use
• if you have previously been registered as an FSP, those FSP numbers
• your business address – the physical address that you provide financial services from
• an address we can use for communication, including an email address.
  We use these addresses to contact you – they are not made publicly available.

If your entity is not on any Companies Office register

If you are not registered on any Companies Office register, you will need to provide the following details.

• The name the FSP is to be registered under, or the entity’s registered name overseas.
• Country where incorporated.
• Incorporation or registration number.
• Any trading names you use.
• Your business address — the physical address that you provide financial services from.
• An address we can use for communications, including an email address. These addresses are used to contact you, they are not publicly available.

Your directors and other personnel

You must provide the following information for every individual who is listed as a director, controlling owner or senior manager of your entity. This information will not be made public on the FSPR.

• Their full legal name, including middle name if the individual has one.
• Any other names they are known by or have been known by previously.
• Their date of birth and gender.
• Their residential address.

Directors

If your entity is a company on the New Zealand Companies Register, the names and addresses of the directors will be copied from that register into your application. You will need to check those details are correct and add:

• any other names they are known by or have been known by previously
• their date of birth and gender.

For entities other than companies, you will need to provide all details.

When completing the director details section for entity types, a director may be an individual or an entity, as defined here:

• in relation to a partnership (other than a limited partnership), any partner
• in relation to a limited partnership, any general partner
• in relation to a body corporate or unincorporated, other than a company, partnership, or limited partnership, any person occupying a position in the body that is comparable with that of a director of a company
• in relation to any other person, that person.

Controlling owners

A controlling owner of an FSP is the person, company or other entity who beneficially owns 50 per cent or more of the FSP. The controlling or beneficial owner is not always the registered owner.

Directors or controlling owners who are entities

Where a New Zealand entity is a director or controlling owner, use the ‘Search for entity’ option. Details for that entity are displayed on-screen. If the entity is not on any Companies Office register, check the box to confirm this, then provide the following details:

• Name
• Incorporation or registration number
• Country where incorporated, and
• Registered office address (this must be a physical address and cannot be a PO Box or Private Bag address).

Senior managers

A senior manager of an FSP – for example, a chief executive or chief financial officer – holds a position that allows them to exercise significant influence over the management or administration of the FSP. A senior manager cannot be a director.

Financial services

When applying to register as an entity, you will also need to provide, or confirm, the following information:

• What financial services you will be providing.
  • For some services you might also need to be licensed by the relevant licensing authority
• Whether you will be providing financial services to retail clients or only to wholesale clients.

Reporting entity status

• Whether the FSP is a reporting entity under the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism Act 2009 (AML/CFT Act) that provides financial services. If so, you must confirm who the AML/CFT supervisors are.

Filing month

To remain registered as a financial service provider you must confirm your FSP's details and services each year. This is called an annual confirmation. Your first annual confirmation will be due next year in the month you choose.

• The system will assign you an annual confirmation filing month. You can keep that or change it to any month, other than December or January.

Threshold declaration

• Confirmation that you (the FSP) expects to provide financial services to persons in New Zealand above the minimum annual business threshold, being:
  • 10 New Zealand resident financial services clients, and
  • $10,000 of financial services transactions in total with its New Zealand resident clients.

In the first 6 months after registration, you must have achieved half of the threshold. That is:

• 5 New Zealand clients, and
• $5000 of transactions with New Zealand resident clients.