Guidance for finance leaders and the people who hire them
Most of what we publish starts as a conversation. A founder asking whether they need a full-time finance director or two days a week of someone considerably more experienced. A chair trying to work out why the board pack still arrives the night before. A compliance officer at a small broker wondering how to cover an SMF16 while they recruit. Those conversations repeat often enough that writing the answer down once is more useful than giving it forty times.
Search is a market with a lot of noise in it, and the easiest way to tell the difference between a firm that knows a sector and one that has simply bought the keyword is to read what they write. If we can explain why a particular hire works, you can judge whether we understand the problem before you ever pick up the phone.
Latest articles
Showing 49–60 of 707
FCA Regulated
FCA Gateway: What a Strong CEO and Chair Statement Needs
The CEO and Chair Statements are the FCA's window into whether the firm's leadership genuinely understands its regulatory obligations — or whether it is relying on a…
FCA Regulated
Variation of Permission: When You Need One and How to Apply
Varying a Part 4A permission is one of the most common post-authorisation regulatory steps for growing FCA-regulated firms — and one of the most frequently misunders…
FCA Regulated
FCA Section 55 Cancellation: Triggers and How to Respond
A Section 55 cancellation is one of the most serious regulatory actions the FCA can take — it removes the firm's permission to carry on regulated activities. Underst…
FCA Regulated
FCA Application Timelines: Realistic Expectations for 2026
The FCA's statutory six-month deadline is the ceiling, not the expectation. In 2026, most well-prepared applications from straightforward firm types are determined i…
FCA Regulated
From TCF to Consumer Duty: What Changed in the Obligation
Treating Customers Fairly and Consumer Duty cover much of the same ground. But the differences in how each obligation operates — in governance, evidencing, enforceme…
FCA Regulated
Vulnerable Customers in Wealth Management: A Practical Guide
Identifying vulnerable clients is one of the most technically and ethically demanding obligations the Consumer Duty places on wealth managers. Done well, it protects…
FCA Regulated
EDD Triggers: High-Risk Countries, Sectors and Products
Enhanced due diligence is not a catch-all for any customer the firm is uncertain about — it is a defined set of measures triggered by specific risk factors. Knowing…
FCA Regulated
Transaction Monitoring Tuning: Balancing Detection and Noise
Transaction monitoring is only as good as its calibration. A system generating hundreds of unactionable alerts daily is not more effective than one generating ten me…
FCA Regulated
MLR 2017 Firm-Wide Risk Assessment: Structure and Content
The firm-wide risk assessment is the foundation of every AML compliance programme. Without a well-structured, specific and regularly updated risk assessment, a firm'…
FCA Regulated
Sanctions Screening for Payment Firms: Speed vs Accuracy
For payment firms processing thousands of transactions per day, sanctions screening creates a direct tension between two non-negotiable requirements: screening must…
FCA Regulated
Tier 1 and Tier 2 Conduct Rules: Who They Apply To
The SMCR Conduct Rules apply to virtually everyone working at an FCA-regulated firm — but they do not apply equally. The distinction between Tier 1 (Individual Condu…
FCA Regulated
Reasonable Steps Under SMCR: What the FCA Looks For
"Reasonable steps" is the central concept of SMCR personal accountability — and the FCA's track record in enforcement shows exactly what it means in practice. This i…
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About the FD Capital blog
The useful information in this market is unevenly distributed. A private equity house doing its fourth CFO replacement knows roughly what good looks like. A founder-led business making its first senior finance hire usually does not, and the cost of getting it wrong falls hardest on exactly those businesses. Writing it down evens that up a little.
Articles are written by the FD Capital team and overseen by founder Adrian Lawrence FCA. Where we quote day rates, salaries or timescales, the figures come from live mandates rather than from a published survey.
Written and overseen by
Adrian Lawrence FCA
Adrian is the founder and Managing Director of FD Capital. A Chartered Accountant and ICAEW Fellow, he became a finance director at 28 and has spent more than 25 years at C-suite level, including as finance director of a listed company and of a private equity backed management buy-out. Every search is run by our specialist team, with Adrian overseeing each mandate.
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