Business Legal Services
Financial Services Regulation
Our financial services lawyers will help you strategically navigate the evolving and complex financial services regulatory environment.
Regulation is increasingly complex and can place significant burdens and restrictions on how regulated financial institutions and unregulated firms may operate. Our experienced team advise and support entrepreneurs, business owners, senior management, in-house legal teams, compliance functions and front-line businesses to help navigate through the regulations to meet their objectives and mitigate risk.
We’ll help you create a business plan, set-up your business, develop and enhance your regulatory frameworks and control environments along with supporting your interactions with the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) or Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA), including with regulator teams in Authorisations, Supervision and Enforcement.
What we do
Financial services solicitors
Our financial services lawyers can assist you with your requirements and walk you through what is needed whether you are applying for authorisation, drafting customer agreements or buying or selling a regulated business or providing unregulated financial services on the perimeter of regulated activity. Some of the typical areas we would help your business with include:
- Banking and finance
- Payment services and electronic money issuance
- Consumer credit and hire
- Securities services, including transactional and regulatory advice
- Applications to the FCA for authorisation, variation of permission and Appointed Representatives
- The FCA’s Senior Managers and Certification Regime
- Dealing with regulators including reporting, notifications responding to requests and enforcement
- Perimeter guidance on regulated and unregulated activities
- Financial promotions
- Outsourcing agreements and FCA, PRA and EBA guidance
- Anti-Money Laundering
- Bribery Act requirements
- Data protection requirements
If you are looking to buy or sell a regulated business, our finance solicitors will also work closely with our corporate and commercial teams to cover all aspects of your deal, so legal work is seamless for your entire transaction.
Who we help
From Fintech start-ups to financial institutions
We regularly give expert legal advice on financial services legislation to a wide range of clients and financial institutions including:
- Entrepreneurs and disruptors
- Early stage companies looking to brainstorm a business plan involving financial services
- Payment service providers (payment institutions, electronic money institutions, banks)
- Consumer credit firms (from small retailers to banks)
- Consumer hire firms
- Lenders
- Fintech and regtech firms
- Investment firms, managers and funds
- Banks
- Asset and wealth management (firms and managers)
- Finance companies
- Overseas entities looking to enter the UK market
- Entities looking to provide a regulated/unregulated financial service
- Companies planning to provide financial services, digital assets, or crypto assets
- Entities looking to partner with banks and institutions regulated by the FCA or the PRA
Complete solutions
Experts in financial services regulation
Our team can assist you across all areas of financial services, including:
Finding the right legal partner
Why work with Harper James
Choose a legal partner you can trust: we’ll help protect your goals, your business and your people so you can move forward with confidence and focus on growing your business.
Affordable, transparent and predictable pricing
Clear itemised invoices, subscription plans with up to 50% discount, and fixed fee products help you plan and manage legal spend – with no nasty surprises.
Proven track record and measurable results
We’ve supported over 8,000 businesses since 2014, with an ‘Excellent’ rating on Trustpilot and a Net Promoter Score (NPS) of 60+ from monthly client surveys.
Straight-talking, responsive advice
We’re here to make things easier, not add complexity. That means fast response times, practical expert legal advice delivered in plain English, and dedicated client service and account management support.
Risk and compliance assured
We’re an SRA regulated firm, but more importantly, we build quality, data, and compliance best practice into everything we do.
Appointing a legal partner is a big decision. That’s why we’re open about our values, culture and model, so you can see what makes us tick. And because a productive partnership starts with understanding, we always begin with a conversation – listening to your goals, pressures and plans, then tailoring our support to fit.
Testimonials
What our clients say
Meet our team
Why choose our financial services regulation solicitors?
Our financial services solicitors have all been recruited from top 100 UK law firms, the FCA or from large international businesses. Having worked in financial services businesses and provided thought leadership to industry bodies our team have advised businesses across the spectrum from innovative start-ups and fintechs, to banks and insurance intermediaries.
We take a holistic approach to ensure advice is joined up with our colleagues in commercial, corporate, IP and technology.
Find out more about our financial services solicitors here:
Top ranked SME focused firm
"Harper James is a one-stop shop for anything legal. It has excellent breadth, with experience on a large number of deals and multiple departments for different legal areas."
Chambers and Partners 2026
Pricing and service plans
Legal support designed
to fit your business needs
Our three transparent service plans are designed to give you the widest possible access to high-quality legal advice, whatever the size and nature of your business:
Engage
Flexible access to senior solicitors at highly competitive rates
An alternative to our subscription plans, offering access to full service legal expertise on a project-by-project basis.
Enable
Purpose built legal support for start-ups and smaller businesses
Monthly subscription plan for £239 per month, with £159 monthly credit and access to all legal services at 50% discount on our Standard Rates.
Extend
Comprehensive legal partnership for established businesses
Fully account managed and scalable annual subscription plan with support from a curated team of partners and senior solicitors, with up to 33% discount on our Standard Rates.
