Innovation Help Desk advises on licence issues

What is the FIN-FSA’s Innovation Help Desk?

The Finnish Financial Supervisory Authority’s (FIN-FSA) Innovation Help Desk advises service providers on authorisation, registration and other licence issues. The Help Desk welcomes as customers both start-up companies in the sector and already established enterprises that are planning to introduce a new type of product, service or way of operating. We also give advice to individuals who plan to set up a financial company. A customer relationship with the Help Desk requires participation in advice sessions by the owner or an employee of the company. The Help Desk provides the advice free of charge.

We foster an innovation-friendly culture while, at the same time, ensuring that the financial participants observe the law and give sufficient consideration in their activities to issues related to customer protection.

Please read the disclaimer at the bottom of the page before contacting the Innovation Help Desk.

How does the Innovation Help Desk work?

You may send your question by email to the address innovaatio-helpdesk(at)finanssivalvonta.fi. The Innovation Help Desk’s experts will contact you by email or phone. Where necessary, the experts may request a Skype meeting or an ordinary meeting at the FIN-FSA’s premises.

What information on my business should I submit to the Innovation Help Desk?

Give a description of the key areas of your company’s business in your first message, either in writing or by enclosing a process diagram. Examine the applicable regulations and the information available on the FIN-FSA’s website before contacting the Help Desk. It is particularly important that you give an account of the cash flows of the business, as the issues related to the management and possession of customer assets often play an essential role in the assessment of the need for authorisation. You may also use the preliminary data form.

Disclaimer

Written or oral information (or advice/guidance) to applicants on financial market regulations provided by the Financial Supervisory Authority (FIN-FSA) via its Innovation Help Desk, as well as assessments on whether the activities that the applicant is planning require authorisation or registration, or any decision otherwise taken by the FIN-FSA are based on written information on the applicant’s activities or planned activities, as submitted by the applicant to the FIN-FSA, and for the accuracy of which the applicant is responsible. The information and assessments provided via the Innovation Help Desk are intended to inform the applicant and constitute background information for the sole use of the applicant.

Information and assessments provided via the Innovation Help Desk are general and preliminary in nature and are based on the Innovation Help Desk's view at that particular moment in time; this may change without separate notification, for example on account of changes in legislation, or more detailed provisions, regulations, decisions, guidelines, recommendations or interpretations issued by the FIN-FSA itself, the European Commission, the European Central Bank, European Supervisory Authorities or other authorities, or amendments thereto, or other changes in circumstances.

The information or assessments provided by employees of the FIN-FSA via the Innovation Help Desk do not necessarily reflect the official views of the FIN-FSA, nor are the information or assessments provided binding upon it. The FIN-FSA will not take any official decision until it has received from the applicant a specific application for authorisation, registration or other decision. The FIN-FSA may at a later stage separately assess the activities of the applicant and take requisite measures as referred to in the Act on the Financial Supervisory Authority (878/2008) or other financial market regulations.

The FIN-FSA is not the applicant’s tax, bookkeeping or legal counsel. The information and assessments provided via the Innovation Help Desk do not exempt the applicant from the responsibility to examine carefully all the regulations governing the applicant’s activities. Applicants themselves are responsible for their activities, related decisions and any costs and damages resulting from such decisions. The FIN-FSA or its employees accept no liability for information or assessments provided via the Innovation Help Desk, actions taken or omitted on the basis thereof, or any direct or indirect damage that may be caused thereby to applicants or other parties.